Hiroshima Leaders Offer Flowers at Ground Zero in N.Y.

New York, April 27 (Jiji Press)--Hiroshima Governor Hidehiko Yuzaki and Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui paid floral tribute on Sunday at Ground Zero in New York, the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Yuzaki and Matsui are visiting New York to attend a meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference that will start on Monday. The governor and mayor observed silent prayers after laying wreaths of flowers near a monument inscribing the names of nearly 3,000 victims killed in the attacks. "The victims of the terrorist attacks were ordinary people as those who suffered the U.S. atomic bombings" in 1945 were, Yuzaki said. He added that he will work on nuclear nonproliferation by having sympathy for victims of both attacks. "I offered flowers while thinking that terrorist acts should be eliminated," Matsui said. The United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and another on the city of Nagasaki three days later, both in western Japan. END