Lead

TOKYO, August 9. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, speaking at the ceremony to mark the 81st anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bombing, did not mention that the bomb was dropped by the United States, as reported by TASS.

"81 years ago, Nagasaki was fully destroyed by a single atomic bomb," she said, without elaborating on who dropped it.

In contrast, Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki, who spoke before the prime minister, admitted that the bomb was dropped by "a US military plane."

Coverage Comparison

TASS reported that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also did not directly name the US as the country that bombed Nagasaki. His message, read out by UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, marked the 81st anniversary of the attack. Three days earlier, at the Hiroshima ceremony, Guterres, Takaichi, and Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui also stopped short of directly naming the US, according to TASS.

TASS noted that Japanese officials generally do not emphasize in public speeches that the United States carried out the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At the same time, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum presents comprehensive information about the atomic bombings of 1945, and Japanese school and university textbooks cover their history in detail.

Key Claims

  • The United States carried out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, with the officially stated aim of accelerating Japan's surrender. These remain the only instances of nuclear weapons being used in warfare in human history.
  • According to various estimates, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed between 70,000 and 100,000 people on the day of the explosion. By the end of 1945, the death toll had risen to 140,000 as people died in hospitals from injuries and radiation exposure. The total number of victims of the bombing now exceeds 350,000.
  • The United States still does not acknowledge moral responsibility for the atomic bombings, justifying its actions as a "military necessity."
  • Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi did not mention the US as the country that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
  • Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki admitted the bomb was dropped by a US military plane.
  • UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres did not directly name the US as the country that bombed Nagasaki in his message marking the 81st anniversary of the attack.
The UN chief also used his message to pose rhetorical questions to the world: "Have we learned the lessons forged in flame here 81 years ago? Will humanity choose a future of peace? Or will we continue to live under the shadow of nuclear annihilation?" He acknowledged that the world is living at a time of "deepening geopolitical division, rising mistrust, and intensifying competition." "The norms and guardrails that have helped prevent a nuclear cataclysm are under strain," he added. "Let's choose dialogue over division, cooperation over confrontation, and common security over narrow advantage," the secretary-general urged.