Photo/Illutration Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui offers flowers in front of the cenotaph for victims of the 1945 atomic bombing in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on Aug. 6. (Takuya Tanabe)

HIROSHIMA--In his Peace Declaration, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui exhorted the world’s leaders to veer away from their reliance on nuclear deterrence, a policy known as MAD for mutual assured destruction.

At the ceremony held in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on Aug. 6 to mark the 78th anniversary of the city’s atomic bombing, Matsui read out the Peace Declaration and referred to the Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament released by the Group of Seven leaders when they met here in May.

The vision said security policies adopted by nations are based on the understanding that as long as nuclear weapons exist, they can be used for defensive purposes.

“Leaders around the world must confront the reality that nuclear threats now being voiced by certain policymakers reveal the folly of nuclear deterrence theory,” Matsui said. “They must immediately take concrete steps to lead us from the dangerous present toward our ideal world.”

Matsui also quoted from Mohandas K. Gandhi who based his independence movement in India on nonviolence and said: “Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.”

Matsui added, “To end the current war (in Ukraine) as quickly as possible, the leaders of nations should act in accordance with Gandhi’s assertion, with civil society rising up in response.”

Matsui urged the Japanese government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and to attend the conference of parties to the treaty scheduled for November with observer status.

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