Riyaz Khaliq Khaliq
March 17, 2022•Update: March 18, 2022
ISTANBUL
Anti-nuclear campaigner and the former mayor of Japan's nuclear-bombed Hiroshima prefecture on Thursday urged Russia's President Vladimir Putin not to use nuclear weapons in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Tadatoshi Akiba's remarks came during a news conference in Tokyo, as Russia continues to wage war in Ukraine.
Akiba, who has initiated a petition against the use of nuclear weapons, has urged world leaders possessing nukes to visit the two Japanese cities to “learn about the damage a nuclear attack can bring.”
He also asked Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to meet Putin and other heads of nuclear-weapons states to “convey the convictions of 'hibakusha' (survivors of 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in World War II)” who are seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons, Kyodo News reported.
“The victims of the 1945 US atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki went through a ‘living hell’ and the despicable reality they somehow managed to survive,” said Akiba.
Moscow has put its nuclear forces on high alert after Russia declared war on Ukraine on Feb. 24.
It has drawn international condemnation, led to financial restrictions on Moscow, and spurred an exodus of global firms from Russia.
According to the UN, at least 726 people have been killed and 1,174 have been injured in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, while conditions on the ground make it difficult to verify the true figure.
More than 3.1 million people have so far fled to neighboring countries, said the UN refugee agency.
Akiba also criticized former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's call for "discussions about the possibility of a nuclear weapon sharing arrangement with the US."
Such conflict-inducing rhetoric should not be lightly expressed, especially by the former prime minister, he said.
The call by Abe was refused by Kishida, who himself is elected from an electoral constituency in Hiroshima and has campaigned for a world free of nuclear weapons.
During World War II, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated by atomic bombs dropped by the US.
The US dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima – the site of the world's first atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945 – and Nagasaki in 1945, which resulted in the deaths of at least 140,000 people by the end of that year.
