Don’t Forget Resolve to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: Nagasaki Mayor

August 9, 2018

Nagasaki- Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue on Thursday urged nuclear nations and countries depending on nuclear umbrellas not to forget the international resolve to abolish nuclear weapons made in 1946.

"Please do not forget the resolve of the first United Nations General Assembly resolution to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons," Taue told an annual peace memorial ceremony.

The Japanese government should support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and fulfill its moral obligation as the only atomic-bombed nation, he also said in a peace declaration to mark the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the southwestern city of Nagasaki.

The ceremony, held at Nagasaki Peace Park, was attended by hibakusha atomic bomb survivors, bereaved families of deceased victims and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also joined the ceremony as the first U.N. head to do so.

Other participants included representatives of 71 countries, including the world's eight nuclear powers such as the United States, Russia and China.

A list of the names of 3,511 victims newly confirmed dead in the year to the end of July was dedicated at a memorial, bringing the total death toll to 179,226.

At the ring of a bell, participants offered a minute of silence from 11:02 a.m. (2:02 a.m. GMT), the exact time the bomb was dropped on Aug. 9, 1945, near the end of World War II. It was three days after the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima in western Japan.

"A shift toward openly asserting that nuclear weapons are necessary and that their use could lead to increased military might is once again on the rise," Taue said in the peace declaration.

"I strongly request that you change to security policies not dependent on nuclear weapons before humanity once again commits a mistake that would create even more atomic bombing victims," he also said.

Taue urged the world to cooperate for an early entry into force of the U.N. nuclear weapons ban treaty, adopted last year.

He called on the Japanese government, which has not signed the landmark treaty, to "fulfill its moral obligation to lead the world toward denuclearization" as "the only country to have suffered from the wartime use of nuclear weapons."

After noting recent moves toward denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, Taue also asked the government to "work toward the realization of a Northeast Asia Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone that would see Japan and the entire Korean Peninsula denuclearized."

Following Taue's speech, Terumi Tanaka, 86, a representative of hibakusha, read out a pledge for peace.

In a speech during the ceremony, Abe said his country's mission is to tenaciously continue efforts to realize a world without nuclear weapons.

Showing concerns over growing differences in views on how to advance nuclear disarmament, Abe promised to work to bridge nuclear and nonnuclear weapon states and lead international efforts.

As in a similar ceremony in Hiroshima on Monday, he stopped short of mentioning the U.N. nuclear weapons ban treaty.

Guterres said, "Let us all commit to making Nagasaki the last place on earth to suffer nuclear devastation." Jiji Press