The Presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia called on Thursday for broader European Union involvement in the a Baltic gas pipeline which they said posed a potentially catastrophic environmental threat to their region, Reuters said. The three Baltic leaders, meeting in Estonia, told a news conference that the Russia-to-Germany pipeline would be built upon a seabed which had been littered with tonnes of dumped chemical weapons, Baltic news service BNS reported. Any mistakes made during construction could release the chemicals with drastic consequences, they said. "The construction of the gas supply pipeline is of vital importance to the countries of the region, however we must draw the attention of the EU and the Scandinavian countries to the potential threats such construction is posing," BNS quoted Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus as saying. Estonian President Arnold Ruutel said an extensive area in the south of the Baltic Sea was polluted with chemical weapons, BNS reported. "An extensive area in the south of the Baltic Sea is polluted with chemical weapons," he said. --More 2332 Local Time 2032 GMT
