Hiroshima urged denuclearization today to prevent a repeat of the horrors of the atomic bombing on this Japanese city on the 78th anniversary of the devastating attack, and months after the G7 leaders carried out a historic visit to this city.
In his annual Declaration of Peace delivered during a ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park, Peace Memorial Park Mayor Kazumi Matsui hailed the G7 leaders' historic visit to the park and museum last May and urged politicians to abandon the idea of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war.
"Leaders around the world must face the reality that the nuclear threats now being expressed by certain policymakers reveal the folly of nuclear deterrence theory," Matsui said, adding that "concrete steps must be taken immediately to take us from a dangerous present to an ideal world", in a ceremony reported by EFE.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who also attended the event, said in his speech that "the road to nuclear disarmament has become more dangerous due to deepening international divisions and nuclear threats from Russia," adding that " It is crucial to reinvigorate the international drive towards a world without nuclear weapons once again."
This Sunday, a minute of silence was also observed at 8:15 in the morning (23:15 Saturday GMT), the exact time that the American bomber Enola Gay dropped the uranium bomb and detonated it over the city on the 6th August 1945.
The statements by Kishida and Matsui come after the leaders of the Group of Seven met in this Japanese city last May, where they made a historic visit to the Hiroshima Peace Museum and Park and listened to the words of the mayor and the survivors of the bombing -hibakusha-.
This visit was criticized by some hibakusha, since they consider that the declaration and some of the gestures that came out of the visit were "insufficient" to achieve a true denuclearization and that the horror experienced would not be repeated again.
The G7 has several nuclear powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France and the former also has weapons deployed in two other countries: Germany and Italy, while Japan and Canada are covered by Washington's nuclear protection "umbrella". .
Matsui also wanted to express the wish of the hibakusha, saying that his country should serve as a reconciliation link between nuclear and non-nuclear powers and join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
This agreement, which entered into force in 2021, would force the Asian country to renounce the nuclear protection provided by the United States.
It also contains prohibitions on the development, production, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, and seeks to send a clearer and stronger message than the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970, of which Japan is part.
"Japan should immediately join the Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty and establish common ground for nuclear abolition discussions, at least as an observer, at the second meeting in November this year," Matsui said.
