Hiroshima Backs Obama`s Nuclear Abolition Goal

Hiroshima, Aug. 6 (Jiji Press)--Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba
expressed strong support for U.S. President Barack Obama's call for a
nuclear-free world, aiming to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020.
In a peace declaration at a ceremony to mark the 64th anniversary
of the U.S. atomic bombing of this western Japan city, Akiba said, "We
support President Obama and have a moral responsibility to act to abolish
nuclear weapons," citing the U.S. leader's speech in Prague in April.
"Nuclear weapons abolition is the will not only of the hibakusha
(atomic bomb survivors) but also of the vast majority of people and nations
on this planet," Akiba said.
Calling the global majority of people aiming to abolish nuclear
weapons "Obamajority," Akiba said, "We call on the rest of the world to join
forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020."
In the Prague speech, Obama said, "As the only nuclear power to
have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to
act." "I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the
peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."
The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6,
1945, and another on Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, three days later, in the
closing days of World War II.
In the peace declaration, Akiba also called on the Japanese
government to beef up its assistance measures for aging hibakusha survivors
as their average age now stands at over 75.
He added that Hiroshima is "doing everything" to ensure the
adoption of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol, a roadmap for the elimination
of all nuclear weapons by 2020, at a review conference among the parties to
the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty next year.
The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol was drawn up by Mayors for Peace,
an international organization of cities working to promote world peace and
eliminate nuclear weapons.
Once the protocol is adopted at the NPT review conference, "our
scenario calls for an immediate halt" to acquisition and deployment of
nuclear weapons by North Korea and all other nations, visits to Hiroshima
and Nagasaki by leaders of nuclear powers and suspected nuclear weapons
states, and an early convening of a special U.N. session on disarmament.
Through the process, Hiroshima hopes for the start by 2015 of
global negotiations on the conclusion of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons
toward the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2020, Akiba said.
In concluding remarks in the declaration, Akiba said: "We have the
power. We have the responsibility. And we are the Obamajority. Together, we
can abolish nuclear weapons. Yes, we can."
The ceremony, held at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park located
near the atomic bomb's blast center, was attended by about 50,000 people,
including Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, U.N. General Assembly President
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, and ambassadors and other representatives from 59
countries.
They offered one minute's silent prayer for the victims of the
bombing from 8:15 a.m., the time when the atomic bomb exploded over the city
64 years ago. In the past year, 5,635 atomic bomb survivors died, bringing
the total death toll from the nuclear bombing to 263,945.
Noting that Japan is the only nation in the world attacked with
nuclear bombs, Aso said that the country will firmly maintain its three
nonnuclear principles of not processing or producing nuclear weapons and not
allowing the entry of nuclear weapons into its territory.
Japan will spearhead global efforts to abolish nuclear weapons and
help the world achieve permanent peace, he said.
The prime minister also said that the government is working to ease
the eligibility criteria for state aid to atomic bomb survivors in order to
help as many victims as possible.
END