During a Peace Declaration speech marking the 75th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki on Sunday, Mayor Tomihisa Taue urged world leaders to do more for a nuclear weapons ban.

During World War II, the US detonated nuclear bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US bombed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Sunday marked the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki.

Opening his speech, Taue expressed concern that nuclear weapons still existed 75 years later. He stated that, even though the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force 50 years ago, the threat of nuclear weapons being used “is increasingly becoming real” because of the development of new nuclear weapons and the expiration of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

The NPT was enacted in 1970 to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to further achievement of nuclear and general disarmament. The INF was an arms control treaty between the US and the Soviet Union that expired in August 2019.

The UN adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017, but Taue said that “nuclear arms reductions are far too late in coming.” Even with atomic bombing survivors sharing their experiences, “the true horror of nuclear weapons has not yet been adequately conveyed to the world at large.”

Taue appealed to “everyone around the world” to work for peace and to clear the world of nuclear weapons. He called on country leaders to work towards nuclear weapon disarmament, and he asked Japan’s government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and ratify it as early as possible.

In closing, Taue said:

Along with everyone who reluctantly could not attend today’s ceremony because of the novel coronavirus, we offer our heartfelt prayers for those who lost their lives to the atomic bomb and hereby declare that Nagasaki will continue to work tirelessly with Hiroshima, Okinawa, and all the people in places where great losses of life were experienced due to war and where peace is longed for, in order to bring about eternal peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons.