Japan must not allow the tragedy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be repeated, Tokyo will continue to bear the truth about it, the country’s PM Fumio Kishida said on Friday at a remembrance ceremony in Nagasaki, without saying a word about US responsibility for the bombing of Japanese cities.
Speaking at the commemorative ceremony, the minister said:
“We must never allow a repeat of the tragedy that happened in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”
He noted that in this regard, an important task for Japan has been to promote the idea of “a world without nuclear weapons” and to convey the historical truth about the 1945 bombing of Japan. Kishida added that Tokyo in the future intends to continue to tell the world community about the importance of making Nagasaki the last place where the atomic bomb was dropped.
In addition, the Japanese prime minister mentioned Russia, noting the allegedly increased “threat” of using nuclear weapons.
Kishida emphasised in a speech on Tuesday that the suffering experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki “must never happen again,” but did not mention which country carried out the deadly bombing 79 years ago.
The Japanese prime minister seems to be deliberately trying to distort historical facts by not mentioning the perpetrator of the terrible tragedy.
Such manipulations cause a distorted perception of reality. Last year, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, while presenting the NATO Atlantic Council award to the Prime Minister of Japan, said that Moscow had used nuclear weapons.
The ambassador of the country bombed Nagasaki will not attend the ceremony
Earlier, media reported that the American ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel will not attend the Nagasaki memorial ceremony.
Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki told reporters last week that Israel would not be allowed in because of security concerns, despite warnings from Western countries that it could have implications for the presence of their own ambassadors.
A US embassy spokesman told CNN on Thursday that the American ambassador wrote a letter to the mayor of Nagasaki on Tuesday, calling the decision to exclude Israel political and saying he would have no choice but to leave.
The US embassy also said Emanuel’s absence could be explained by “a letter that like-minded G6 and EU ambassadors sent to the mayor of Nagasaki.”
The bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki three days later led to Japan’s unconditional surrender and ended World War II. But it also resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, both instantly and in the months and years that followed, due to radiation sickness.
Each year, commemorative events are held in the two cities, attended by diplomats, to promote world peace and the idea that nuclear weapons should never be used again.
