Nuclear weapons must be ‘wiped off the face of the Earth’, UN chief says on Hiroshima anniversary.
“Nuclear weapons are nonsense. They guarantee no safety – only death and destruction,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his address on the occasion of the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The UN chief joined thousands of others on Saturday at Peace Park in the center of the Japanese city to mark the anniversary of the bombing that killed 140,000 before the end of 1945.
As the Peace Bell sounded, the crowd gathered at the park, including Japan prime minister Fumio Kishida, observed a moment of silence at the exact time the bomb exploded.
“Three-quarters of a century later, we must ask what we’ve learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945,” Guterres said.
“We cannot forget the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must act in their memory and wipe nuclear weapons off the face of the earth once and for all,” Mr. Guterres later tweeted.
“At a time when geopolitical tensions are rising, and the nuclear threat is back in focus, Japan’s strong and consistent voice on peace is more important than ever,” he added.
However, the UN chief sidestepped a direct mention of Russia, which calls its invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation.”
