Nagasaki Urges Gov’t to Heed Security Policy Worries on A-Bomb Day

Nagasaki (PNA/Kyodo) — Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue called on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to heed mounting public concern over its security policy on Saturday, the 69th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the southwestern Japan city.

At an annual ceremony to mourn the victims of the attack, Taue pledged in his Peace Declaration the city’s continued push for the elimination of nuclear weapons, while touching on the government’s controversial decision last month to enable Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, or coming to the defense of allies even when Japan is not under attack.

“The oath prescribed in the Japanese Constitution that Japan shall ‘renounce war’ is the founding principle for postwar Japan and Nagasaki, a country and a city which suffered the atomic bomb.” (PNA/Kyodo) JBP/RSM

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