Peres tweets pope a welcome
Benedict XVI gains more than 500,000 followers day after joining Twitter, receives personal message from Israeli president
Video courtesy of jn1.tv
Peres, 89, tweeted on Tuesday, "Your holiness, welcome to Twitter. Our relations with the Vatican are at their best and can form a basis to further peace everywhere."
The 85-year-old pope did not immediately respond. He joined Twitter on Monday and gained more than 500,000 followers the day after the Vatican unveiled his handle – @Pontifex, even though he hadn't sent a single tweet yet.
The Vatican said on Monday that Benedict would start tweeting on mostly spiritual topics from December 12. He plans tweets in eight languages – Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.
The pope, leader of some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, won't be following anyone but himself, the Vatican said.
Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has embraced social media. He visited Facebook's headquarters where creator Marc Zuckerberg helped him launch his official Facebook page in English.
In collaboration with a well-known Israeli announcer, his office released a music video, asking people to be his Facebook friend.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
