Nagasaki Mayor Determined to Realize World without Nukes

Nagasaki, Aug. 9 (Jiji Press)--Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue emphasized his determination to realize a world without nuclear weapons for the coming generations at a ceremony Saturday to mark the 69th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of the southwestern Japan city of Nagasaki. In this year's peace declaration, Taue also urged the central government to address concern over the government's approval last month of its constitutional reinterpretation that allows Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense. The ceremony was attended by hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivors, and bereaved families, as well as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Representatives of 48 foreign countries, the largest number ever, attended the event, including those of the United States, France, Russia, China and India in the nuclear weapons club. 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. In the peace declaration, Taue asked all nuclear states and all countries under the nuclear umbrellas to create "a forum for discussions" with nations seeking to ban nuclear weapons. "As the country that best understands the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, I ask the government of Japan to take the lead in these efforts," the mayor said. The oath to renounce war in the constitution "is the founding principle of postwar Japan and Nagasaki," he said. But "the rushed debate over collective self-defense has given rise to concern that this principle is wavering," Taue went on. "I urgently request that the Japanese government take serious heed" of the concern. "Citizens of the world, let us give the next generation a 'world without nuclear weapons,'" Taue appealed in his peace declaration. In a speech at the ceremony, Abe said that Japanese people have managed to rebuild their homeland and restore Nagasaki "as a beautiful city" though they experienced the two atomic bombings. Toward the 70th anniversary in 2015, the government will work even harder toward the realization of a world without nuclear weapons, the prime minister said. In the year to the end of July this year, 3,355 Nagasaki hibakusha died, bringing the total death toll from the bombing to 165,409. The average age of Nagasaki A-bomb survivors has reached 78.93 years. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy released a statement that she thanks the citizens of Nagasaki "for their commitment to building a more peaceful world." END