Nuclear disarmament must be tackled as a pressing issue, not an ideal: Hiroshima Governor

Hiroshima officials urge world leaders to abolish nuclear weapons amid rising tensions, emphasizing the urgent need for action.

Hiroshima officials urged world leaders on August 6 to stop relying on nuclear weapons as deterrence and take immediate action toward abolishment — not as an ideal, but to remove the risk of atomic war amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and rising tensions in East Asia.

They commented as Hiroshima remembered its atomic bombing 79 years ago at the end of World War II.

The memorial comes days after Japan and the U.S. reaffirmed Washington's commitment to “extended deterrence,” which includes atomic weapons, to protect its Asian ally. That is a shift from Japan's past reluctance to openly discuss the sensitive issue as the world's only country to have suffered atomic attacks.

Hiroshima Gov. Hidehiko Yuzaki said nuclear-armed nations and supporters of atomic deterrence “deliberately ignore ... the fact that once people invented a weapon, they used it without exception. “As long as nuclear weapons exist, they will surely be used again someday,” Mr. Yuzaki said in his address at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

“Nuclear weapons abolition is not an ideal to achieve far in the future. Instead, it is a pressing and real issue that we should desperately engage in at this moment since nuclear problems involve an imminent risk to human survival,” he said.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said Russia's war on Ukraine and the worsening conflict between Israel and Palestinians are “deepening distrust and fear among nations” and reinforcing a view that use of force in settling conflict is unavoidable.

The atomic bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, destroyed the city, killing 1,40,000 people. A second bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki killed 70,000 more. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II and Japan's nearly half-century aggression in Asia.