In These New Times

PressTV

26th September, 2009

The mayors of Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only cities in the world subjected to nuclear bomb attacks, have praised a UN resolution for a nuclear-free world.

“This is what we have consistently demanded,” said Nagasaki mayor, Tomihisa Taue. “I am grateful to see that the United Nations is heading in the same direction as us.”

Hiroshima mayor, Tadatoshi Akiba, also welcomed the resolution, praising a speech to the UN by Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who joined calls to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

“Today, even more than 60 years after the atomic bombings (of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), there are people who are suffering from damage triggered by radiation,” said Hatoyama during a speech at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday.

On Thursday, the Security Council unanimously approved a resolution calling on states possessing nuclear weapons to eliminate their arsenals.

More than 140,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and 70,000 others in Nagasaki in August of 1945, when the US bomber, the Enola Gay dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.

Resolution 1887 calls on states that have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “to comply fully with all their obligations” and urges all countries to cooperate so that “the 2010 NPT review conference can successfully strengthen the treaty and set realistic and achievable goals” in non-proliferation, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and disarmament.