Hiroshima on Saturday marked the 71st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing, with Mayor Kazumi Matsui calling on world leaders to do more to abolish nuclear weapons and to follow U.S. President Barack Obama's historic visit to the city in May with trips of their own.
At a memorial ceremony, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe echoed Matsui's call and also urged young people to visit to observe the harrowing reality of the atomic bombing. Abe also reiterated Japan's role in combating nuclear proliferation as the only country to have been attacked with nuclear weapons.
In the Peace Declaration read at the city's annual memorial ceremony, Matsui urged the leaders of all nations to visit Hiroshima, which was devastated by an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki, which was obliterated by another atomic strike three days later by the United States, in order to "etch the reality of the atomic bombings in each (leader's) heart."