UN chief avoids naming US in Hiroshima anniversary message

TOKYO, August 6. /TASS/. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres once again did not mention that the United States was the country that carried out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in his message marking its 81st anniversary.

UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu traditionally read out the message.

In previous years, Guterres also never directly named the United States as the country that carried out the atomic bombings in similar messages commemorating the anniversaries of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Meanwhile, the UN chief said the entire world should ask itself several questions on this day. "Have we learned the lessons forged in flame here 81 years ago? Will humanity choose a future of peace? Or will we continue to live under the shadow of nuclear annihilation?" Guterres asked. He also acknowledged that the world is living at a time of "deepening geopolitical division, rising mistrust, and intensifying competition." "The norms and guardrails that have helped prevent a nuclear cataclysm are under strain," he added. "Let’s choose dialogue over division, cooperation over confrontation, and common security over narrow advantage," the UN secretary-general urged.

Earlier, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui also refrained from naming the United States as the country responsible for the 1945 bombing in their remarks at the memorial ceremony. Japanese officials generally do not emphasize in public speeches that the United States carried out the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum presents comprehensive information about the atomic bombings of 1945. Japanese school and university textbooks also cover their history in detail.

The United States carried out the atomic bombings of the two cities at the very end of World War II, with the officially stated aim of accelerating Japan’s surrender. They remain the only instances of nuclear weapons being used in warfare in human history. According to various estimates, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed between 70,000 and 100,000 people on the day of the explosion. By the end of 1945, the death toll had risen to 140,000 as people died in hospitals from their injuries and radiation exposure. The total number of victims of the bombing now exceeds 350,000.

The United States still does not acknowledge moral responsibility for the atomic bombings, justifying its actions as a "military necessity." Former President Joe Biden, who attended the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima in May 2023, did not apologize for the nuclear attacks. Neither did Barack Obama, who in 2016 became the first sitting US president to visit the memorial. US President Donald Trump has not visited the memorials in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, although the two Japanese cities invited him both during his first presidential term and after his return to the White House.