Leaders pay tribute to dead of Hiroshima

HIROSHIMA // The catastrophic humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons was witnessed on Saturday by foreign ministers of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative.

They said their visits to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum, the atom bomb memorial and the testimonies of survivors gave them the determination to work harder to achieve the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Dr Sultan Al Jaber, the Minister of State, who is leading the UAE delegation at the talks, laid a wreath at the memorial.

“Ministers, through their visits to Hiroshima, saw with their own eyes the reality of the damage by the atom bomb,” said Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida. “This certainly has some bearing on what they said in the meeting today but I hope they will further demonstrate leadership based on their experience.”

Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, expressed his sympathy to the people of Japan.

“There are certain moments which you cannot forget throughout your life and this morning, we had such an experience,” he said. “We feel the pain of the people of Hiroshima and we are saying ‘never again’.

“We feel the urgency of the nuclear issue and, after seeing this city, we are sure our initiative is much more meaningful.”

Mexico’s ambassador to Japan, Claude Heller Rouassant, said the humanitarian impact of the use of nuclear weapons was on the international agenda.

“We think it’s very important to go on with these discussions but we have to be very clear that there must be some conclusions and that we cannot debate for 30 years,” he said.

“The conclusions must lead to some kind of arrangement on further norms to assure that the ultimate goal is eliminating nuclear weapons.”