The Japanese Council of Organizations of Victims of Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Nihon Hidankyo), bringing together people who survived the August 1945 nuclear attack on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on Tuesday in Oslo, when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, called on the countries of the world to eliminate nuclear weapons. TASR informs about it based on the AFP report.
The co-chairman of the association, 92-year-old Terumi Tanaka, who survived the bombing of Nagasaki, said in his speech at the ceremony at Oslo City Hall that he “asks governments to take measures to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction”.
They are fighting for the prohibition of nuclear weapons
Together with Tanaka, two other co-chairmen of the Nihon Hidankyo movement, who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. The organization led by them has been fighting for a planet without nuclear weapons for years. Several media noted that it took 80 years for the world to finally recognize and appreciate the movement’s fight against nuclear weapons.
In his speech, Tanaka recalled that the number of eyewitnesses to the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is dwindling, and in ten years there may be only a few of them who will be able to give first-hand testimony. But he expressed hope that the next generation will find ways to build on the efforts of survivors, to raise awareness of the dangers of nuclear arsenals and to develop the Nihon Hidankjo movement.
The Reuters agency added that, according to Tanaka, the movement played a major role in the creation of a worldwide standard on the unacceptability of the use of atomic weapons, the so-called nuclear taboo. At the same time, Tanaka pointed out that this standard has been weakened. He alluded to the threat of using nuclear weapons during the war in Ukraine and the Palestinian Gaza Strip. In this context, Tanaka pointed out that “there are 12,000 nuclear warheads left on Earth today, of which 4,000 are deployed and operational, ready for immediate launch”.
“Mankind could die out in this way even before the devastating effects of climate change become apparent,” warned Tanaka in an interview with journalists on Monday, who was particularly concerned by the recent decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin to relax the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons.
“I think President Putin doesn’t understand what nuclear weapons mean to people,” Tanaka said.
Without the signature of the nuclear powers
Since 2017, the landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons has been signed by 122 world governments, but no nuclear power.
All ambassadors based in Oslo were invited to the awarding of the Nobel Prize on Tuesday. Among the nuclear-weapon states, the ambassadors of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan attended. Ambassadors from Russia, China, Israel and Iran were absent, according to the Nobel Institute.
The chairman of the Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, expressed his concern about the transition to a new, more unstable nuclear era and warned that nuclear war could destroy human civilization.
The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed an estimated 120,000 people immediately, and a similar number died of injuries and radiation effects in the following years.
When announcing the name of this year’s laureate, the Nobel Committee pointed out that “today’s nuclear weapons are much more destructive. They can kill millions of people and would also have a catastrophic impact on the climate. A nuclear war could destroy civilization”.
