Tokyo _ Agencies
On the morning of August August 6, Japan salutes the memory of the first atomic bomb by the United States of America on the city of Hiroshima in western Japan, and the mayor of Hiroshima warned against increasing the pace of national conflicts in the world, threatening peace and security.
On 6 August 1945, the United States of America bombed the city of Hiroshima, where military bases were deployed by a B-29 bomber, killing 140,000 people.
In a speech, the Mayor of Hiroshima Kazumi Matsui, who was standing at the Peace Memorial Park near the blast point, called for a world without nuclear weapons, warning of escalating nationalist tendencies, the Agence France-Presse quoted him as telling AFP.
Without being called, Matsui warned that "some states express openly about a nation that is self-centered and which is the cause of its nuclear arsenal."
"They re-ignite the tensions that have receded with the end of the Cold War," he said. Matsui urged nuclear disarmament in a year when the US president pledged to increase the US arsenal of such weapons.
"If the human family forgets history or stops confronting it, then we make a terrible mistake again," he said. That´s exactly why we should keep talking about Hiroshima. "
"Efforts to get rid of nuclear weapons must continue," he said. But his call shows Japan´s contradictory relationship with nuclear weapons, as Japanese officials consistently express their opposition to the possession of such weapons, but their state´s defense relies mainly on the US nuclear umbrella.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose government chose not to participate in the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, said at the ceremony that "Japan´s responsibility is to bridge the gap between nuclear and non-nuclear states."
"In previous years, it has become clear that there are gaps between countries on how we should continue to reduce nuclear weapons," he said without referring to the treaty.
"At a time when our nation is maintaining the principles (not possessing nuclear weapons), we will work patiently to serve as a bridge between the two sides and to drive the efforts of the international community to" reduce nuclear weapons, "he said.
Japan came under two nuclear attacks launched by the United States at the end of World War II, the first targeting the city of Hiroshima, where 140,000 people were killed and The second is the city of Nagazagi three days later, where 74, 000 people were killed.
