Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may have used the 68th anniversary Friday of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki to pledge his utmost efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, but Mayor Tomihisa Taue criticized the administration for its recent inaction.
"I call on the Japanese government to consider once again that Japan is the only country to have suffered a nuclear bombing," Taue said twice in his latest Peace Declaration, delivered in the city's Peace Park for the annual ceremony that was attended this year by representatives of 44 countries.
He said the Abe administration's failure to sign a statement rejecting the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances at an international meeting in April is "betraying the expectations of global society" and "implies that the government would approve of their use under some circumstances."