U.N. assembly chief says A-bomb tragedy must not be repeated+

HIROSHIMA, Oct. 28 Kyodo -
U.N. General Assembly President Joseph Deiss said Thursday that humanity should
never repeat the tragedy of atomic bombing after meeting survivors of the 1945
U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
During his first trip to the western Japanese city of Hiroshima, Deiss, a Swiss
national, listened to the personal experiences of two 83-year-old survivors --
Shizuko Abe from Hiroshima and Koichi Wada from Nagasaki. The two survivors
have been appointed by the government to serve as special communicators for a
world without nuclear weapons.
Abe related how she suffered from keloid developed as a result of radiation
exposure, while Wada, who was operating a train at the time of the Nagasaki
bombing, told Deiss he took part in rescue activities but lost a friend.
Responding to Wada's question as to why humanity has remained unable to
eliminate nuclear arms, Deiss said he believes countries feel they need to
possess such weapons because of distrust, adding that building trust among
nations is a key mission of the United Nations.
He said he believes humanity will be able to eliminate nuclear weapons
eventually by building and maintaining friendly relations among nations.
Prior to the meeting with the two atomic-bomb survivors, Deiss laid a wreath at
the Cenotaph for the A-Bomb Victims at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and toured
the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum with the museum's director, Koichiro Maeda.
Deiss, who is currently on a five-day trip to Japan at the invitation of the
Foreign Ministry, also paid a visit to the memorial monument for Dr. Marcel
Junod, a Swiss national who brought 15 tons of medicine to Hiroshima shortly
after the atomic bombing.
Deiss earlier attended the ongoing 10th Conference of the Parties to the
Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP10, in Nagoya.
==Kyodo