Tokyo: The mayor of Nagasaki said on Thursday it was “unfortunate” that the US and British ambassadors refused to attend a ceremony to mark the 1945 atomic bombing of the Japanese city because Israel had been defeated.
But he defended the decision not to invite Israel to Friday's annual event, repeating that it was “not political” but to avoid possible protests related to the Gaza conflict.
“It is unfortunate that they have informed us that their ambassadors cannot attend,” Shiro Suzuki told reporters.
Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki speaks to the media at Nagasaki City Hall on August 8, 2024, a day before the annual memorial to mark the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. (JIJI Press via AFP)
“We made a comprehensive decision not for political reasons. We want to have a smooth ceremony in a calm and solemn environment.”
On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people, including many who survived the explosion but later died of radiation exposure.
This happened three days after the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, which killed 140,000 people.
Japan announced its surrender in World War II on August 15, 1945.
The United States, Britain, France, Italy and the European Union – plus reportedly Canada and Australia – all send diplomats below the level of ambassadors to the ceremony.
Only the US and British embassies made an explicit connection to Nagasaki's decision not to invite Israeli ambassador Gilad Cohen, although a source told AFP that the Italian move was also a direct consequence.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in Washington that the United States believed it was “important that the Israeli ambassador be invited as other countries' ambassadors have been invited, and that no country should be singled out.”
“I think our stance on this anniversary and our respect for Japan when it comes to this anniversary is well documented and goes beyond — well beyond — the ambassador not attending one event,” Miller said.
A mushroom cloud rises to a height of 60,000 feet over Nagasaki, Japan, after the dropping of the atomic bomb by the American bomber “Enola Gay”, August 9, 1945.
U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, who was former President Barack Obama's chief of staff, plans to attend a memorial service at a temple in Tokyo instead.
Obama's ambassador to Japan, John Roos, became the first US representative to attend the Hiroshima commemoration in 2010 and followed suit in Nagasaki two years later.
Obama visited Hiroshima in 2016. The United States has never apologized for the bombings, the only nuclear attacks in history.
The British embassy said the omission of Israel created an “unfortunate and misleading equivalence with Russia and Belarus – the only other countries not invited to this year's ceremony”. Germany reiterated this position.
A spokesman for the French embassy called Suzuki's decision “regrettable and questionable”.
Cohen, who attended a similar memorial service in Hiroshima on Tuesday, said last week that the Nagasaki decision “sends the wrong message to the world”.
On Thursday, Cohen thanked “all the countries that have chosen to stand with Israel and oppose its exclusion from the Nagasaki peace ceremony.”
“Thank you for being on the right side of history with us,” Cohen said on X, formerly Twitter.
