Japan condemned US President Donald Trump, who was recently to compare US attacks on Iran to bomb the World War II Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“That hit ended the war,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I do not want to use an example of Nagasaki, but it was essentially the same thing.”
In August 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs at two southern Japanese cities, killing around 140,000 people. The remaining people live with psychological trauma and have increased the risk of cancer to date.
If Trump’s comments “justify leaving the atomic bomb, it is extremely regrets for us as a city, which was bombing,” said Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki.
Trump’s comments are “unacceptable”, an atomic bomb survivor Mimaki Toshiyuki said, “According to Public Broadcaster NHK, the Nobel Peace Prize winner is the co-chairman of Nihon Hidanko.
“I am really disappointed. I have anger,” Terruko Yokoyama, another group member, said in the report of Codo News.
The survivors of the atomic bomb attacks protested in Hiroshima on Thursday, seeking to withdraw his statement.
MPs in Hiroshima also rejected a proposal on Thursday, which justifies the use of atomic bombs. He also called for peace to deal with armed struggles peacefully.
Asked whether Tokyo would complain on Trump’s comment, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi Yoshimasa said that Japan has repeatedly expressed its place for Washington on atomic bombs.
Trump’s comments came on Wednesday as he pushed back to a leaked intelligence report, stating that US attacks on Iran returned their nuclear program for only a few months.
Trump stressed that the strike “slant” the program and set it back “decades” – a claim supported by CIA director John Ratcliffe.
Japan is the only country in the world, which has collided with a nuclear attack and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has shaken painful memories.
In Hiroshima, a peace flame that symbolizes opposition to the country’s nuclear weapons, has been burning since the 1960s, while a watch that is displayed at the entrance of a war museum since the world’s final nuclear attack.
World leaders traveling to Hiroshima are also asked to make paper cranes to confirm their commitment to peace.
