Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers a speech throughout a Nagasaki Peace Ceremony to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the atomic bombing on the Peace Park in Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 2026. /VCG
Japan’s Nagasaki on Sunday commemorated the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the town within the closing days of World War II. During the ceremony, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made ambiguous remarks on Japan’s non-nuclear rules, whereas Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki condemned nuclear weapons as an “absolute evil.”
A second of silence was noticed at 11:02 a.m. native time, the precise second when a plutonium atomic bomb dropped by a US bomber exploded over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
The assault on the southwestern Japanese metropolis got here three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in western Japan, and is believed to have killed round 74,000 individuals in Nagasaki by the tip of 1945, whereas leaving many others affected by long-term well being results.
The mayor of Nagasaki delivered a declaration on the annual memorial ceremony, calling nuclear weapons an “absolute evil” and urging the Japanese authorities to meet its historic accountability.
He known as on the Japanese authorities to “uphold the ethos of peace enshrined in the Japanese constitution, which embodies a determination to forever renounce war, as well as the country’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles.”
Takaichi reiterated her ambiguous remarks made on the Hiroshima memorial ceremony days earlier. She mentioned that Japan “is upholding” the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, with out explicitly pledging that the nation would proceed to uphold them, marking a refined departure from the wording utilized by earlier prime ministers.
Japan’s opposition lawmakers had beforehand criticized Takaichi’s remarks as merely an evidence of the present state of affairs, saying they lacked a transparent dedication to sustaining the non-nuclear rules sooner or later.
On the identical day, Russian Ambassador to Japan Nikolay Nozdrev warned of the results of Japan abandoning its non-nuclear standing in an interview with RIA Novosti.
He mentioned that abandoning the non-nuclear rules would violate Japan’s long-standing commitments as a non-nuclear state. He additionally warned that any Japanese transfer to drop its non-nuclear standing would breach the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and set off countermeasures from international locations within the area.
Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which prohibit possessing, producing, or permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japanese territory, have been formally adopted by the Japanese parliament in 1971 and have since turn into the cornerstone of the nation’s nuclear coverage.
Japanese media beforehand reported that the Takaichi administration was contemplating revising the precept of not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan as a part of deliberate revisions to the nation’s three key safety paperwork later this 12 months.
In July, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi publicly mentioned throughout a web-based program that Japan ought to talk about nuclear-related insurance policies with out taboo. These developments have fueled continued concern throughout Japanese society.
(With enter from Xinhua)
Source: CGTN