TOKYO: Nagasaki's mayor said on Thursday it was “sad” that the US and British ambassadors refused to attend a ceremony marking the atomic bombing of the Japanese city in 1945 because Israel was rejected.
But he defended the decision not to invite Israel to the annual event on Friday, repeating that it was “not political” but to avoid possible protests related to the war in Gaza.
“Unfortunately, they have informed us that their embassy cannot be present,” Shiro Suzuki told reporters.
Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki speaks to the media at Nagasaki City Hall on August 8, 2024, one day before the annual commemoration to mark the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. (JIJI Press via AFP)
“We took a comprehensive decision and not for political reasons. We want to have a peaceful ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment”.
On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people, including many who survived the blast but later died from radiation exposure.
This happened three days after the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima which killed 140,000 people.
Japan announced its surrender to World War II on August 15, 1945.
The United States, Britain, France, Italy and the European Union – plus reportedly Canada and Australia – are all sending sub-ambassadors to the ceremony.
Only the US and British embassies made a clear link to Nagasaki's decision not to invite Israel's ambassador, Gilad Cohen, although a source told AFP that the move was the result of Italy too.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States believed “it was important to invite the Israeli ambassador because the ambassadors of other countries were invited, so no country should be singled out.”
“I think our position and our respect for Japan is well documented when it comes to this anniversary, and beyond that — the ambassador not attending an event,” Miller said.
A mushroom cloud rises more than 60,000 feet into the air over Nagasaki, Japan, after the “Enola Gay” atomic bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945. (Shutterstock)
US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, plans to attend a memorial service at a temple in Tokyo.
Obama's ambassador to Japan, John Roos, in 2010 was the first US representative to attend the Hiroshima memorial and followed in Nagasaki two years later.
Obama visited Hiroshima in 2016. The US never apologized for the bombings, the only nuclear attack in history.
The British embassy said that Israel's abandonment created a “sad and deceptive relationship with Russia and Belarus — the other countries that were not invited this year.” Germany echoed that position.
A spokesman for the French embassy called Suzuki's decision “regrettable and questionable.”
Cohen, who attended a similar memorial service in Hiroshima on Tuesday, said last week that the Nagasaki decision “sends the wrong message to the world.”
Cohen on Thursday thanked “all the countries that have chosen to stand with Israel and oppose its exclusion from the Nagasaki peace ceremony.”
“Thank you for standing with us on the right side of history,” Cohen said on X, formerly of Twitter.
