TOKYO: The mayor of Nagasaki said on Thursday it was “regrettable” that US and British ambassadors had refused to attend a ceremony commemorating the atomic bombing of the Japanese city in 1945 because of a snub to Israel.
However, he defended the decision not to invite Israel to Friday's annual event, reiterating that this was “not a political decision” 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 commemoration of the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city. (JIJI Press via AFP)
“We have made a comprehensive decision that is not based on political reasons. We want to have a smooth ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment.”
On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people. Many of them survived the explosion but later died from radiation exposure.
This happened three days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, killing 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 – and reportedly Canada and Australia – are all sending diplomats below ambassadorial level 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 Italy's move was also a direct consequence.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States believed it was “important that the Israeli ambassador was invited in the same way that ambassadors of other countries were invited, and that no country should be singled out.”
“I think our position on this and our respect for Japan in light of this anniversary is well documented and goes far beyond the ambassador's absence from an event,” Miller said.
A mushroom cloud rises more than 60,000 feet into the air over Nagasaki, Japan, after the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on August 9, 1945. (Shutterstock)
U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, former President Barack Obama's chief of staff, plans to attend a memorial ceremony at a temple in Tokyo instead.
Obama-appointed Ambassador to Japan John Roos was the first U.S. representative to attend the memorial service for the victims of the Hiroshima disaster in 2010 and followed suit two years later in Nagasaki.
Obama visited Hiroshima in 2016. The United States has never apologized for the bombings, the only nuclear attacks in history.
The British Embassy said that excluding Israel “creates a regrettable and misleading equation with Russia and Belarus – the only other countries not invited to the ceremony this year.” Germany shared this position.
A spokesman for the French embassy described Suzuki’s decision as “regrettable and questionable.”
Cohen, who attended a similar memorial ceremony in Hiroshima on Tuesday, said last week that the decision on Nagasaki “sends the wrong message to the world.”
On Thursday, Cohen thanked “all countries that have chosen to stand with Israel and oppose its exclusion from the peace ceremony in Nagasaki.”
“Thank you for standing with us on the right side of history,” Cohen said on X, formerly Twitter.
