Hiroshim’s mayor called on Donald Trump to visit the city and to learn first -hand devastation caused by nuclear weapons after the US President compared the 1945 Japan atomic attacks to the recent American strikes in Iran.
“It seems to me that they do not fully understand the reality of atomic bomb attacks that, if used, take the lives of many innocent citizens, regardless of whether they were a friend or an enemy and endanger the survival of the human race,” said Mayor Hirosima Kazumi Matsui on Wednesday (July 2).
Invitation to witnesses of destruction
“I wish President Trump would visit the bombed area to see the reality of atomic bombing and feel the spirit of Hiroshima, and then made a statement,” Matsui said.
Trump’s controversial comparison
22nd June, after the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in response to Israeli strikes on Iran, Trump defended the operation by comparing the atomic bombings that ended in World War II.
“I don’t want to use Hiroshima’s example, I don’t want to use Nagasaki example, but that was basically the same,” Trump said last Wednesday at the NATO summit in The Hague.
“If you look at Hiroshima, when you look at Nagasaki, it also ended the war,” Trump said, referring to a few American nuclear strikes in Japan in 1945, which basically ended in World War II. “That ended the war in a different way.”
“That ended the war and it ended this war,” he added.
The Hiroshima Assembly condemns notes
Last week, the Municipal Assembly in Hiroshima approved a formal proposal condemning a statement that justifies the use of atomic bombs and emphasizes permanent trauma caused by civilians.
There was also a small demonstration in Hiroshima, which protested against the comparison.
Historical context
The United States on 6 August 1945 dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and killed around 140,000 people, followed by a second bomb on Nagasaki three days later, which killed about 74,000. Japan gave up soon and ended World War II.
These remain the only cases where nuclear weapons are used in war.
(With AFP inputs)
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