The mayor of Hiroshima has invited President Donald Trump to visit the city after his comments comparing the atomic bombing of 1945 to his own decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 preceded the end of the Second World War, with the U.S. and its allies defeating Japan.
As he attended the NATO summit in the Netherlands last week, Trump compared the American strikes on Iran to the nuclear attack on Japan.
“That hit ended the war. I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing,” said Trump.
“That ended that war and this ended” this war, he added.
Trump’s comments incited an angry backlash in Japan, with Hiroshima’s city assembly passing a resolution condemning statements that “justify the use of atomic bombs.”
Survivors also held a small protest at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
The mayor of the city, Kazumi Matsui, has pushed for nuclear disarmament for years.
“It seems to me that he does not fully understand the reality of the atomic bombings, which, if used, take the lives of many innocent citizens, regardless of whether they were friend or foe, and threaten the survival of the human race,” he told reporters on Wednesday, according to The Japan Times.
“I wish that President Trump would visit the bombed area to see the reality of the atomic bombing and feel the spirit of Hiroshima, and then make statements,” Matsui added.
About 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki from the bombings and the effects of radiation.
Last month, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, issued a warning against the use of nuclear weapons after visiting Hiroshima.
“I recently visited Hiroshima in Japan and stood at the epicenter of a city that remains scarred by the unimaginable horror caused by a single nuclear bomb dropped in 1945, 80 years ago,” she said in a video shared on social media.
“It’s hard for me to find the words to express what I saw, the stories that I heard, the haunting sadness that still remains. This is an experience that will stay with me forever,” she added.
Gabbard faced criticism from Trump after saying that Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon ahead of the U.S. strikes. She subsequently said that Iran would be able to build a weapon within weeks.
In October last year, the Japanese anti-nuclear weapon group Nihon Hidayanko was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The group consists of survivors from the bombings.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said at the time that the group was given the award “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons” and for “demonstrating, through witness testimony, that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
Nuclear weapons are yet again a source of unease across the world amid conflicts in the Middle East and between Ukraine and Russia, one of the world’s foremost nuclear powers.
"The nuclear powers are modernizing and upgrading their arsenals; new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons; and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare," the committee said in October. "At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen."
