HIROSHIMA: This year’s Hiroshima Peace Declaration will urge the Japanese government to respond to a request from hibakusha atomic bomb survivors to sign and ratify the 2017 U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said July 31.

The declaration is set to be read out by the mayor at an annual peace memorial ceremony to be held on July 30, the 75th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the western Japan city.

It will then call on civil societies to work together to tackle new threats to mankind, such as the rise of self-centered nationalism and the spread of the new coronavirus.

The declaration will also urge the government to make a political decision to take a step toward expanding the extent of area recognized as exposed to so-called radioactive black rain that fell in the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombing.

“The number of countries ratifying (the treaty) has been increasing and a mediator will play an important role to put (the treaty) into force,” Matsui told a press conference.

Japan’s ratification of the treaty would be “a step further toward a world free from nuclear weapons,” Matsui added.

The United States also dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945, in the closing days of World War II.

JIJI Press