HIROSHIMA--A sister park agreement between what many people might regard as two of the world’s least likely locations--Pearl Harbor and the city of Hiroshima--is again under the spotlight due to a remark by a city government official here.

In June, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park signed the partnership with the Pearl Harbor National Memorial in Hawaii. 

At the time of the June 29 signing in Tokyo, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said the agreement, a U.S. initiative, is about reconciliation.

Fast-forward to Sept. 21 and a session of the Hiroshima municipal assembly.

Shinichiro Murakami, who heads the citizens bureau within the Hiroshima municipal government, said the tie-up would “shelve” discussions about the responsibility of the United States over the city’s Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing.

That comment became the focus of discussions at the municipal assembly the following day.

Murakami, forced to explain his previous day’s statement, said, “The term shelve in general does not mean abandoning the resolution process for an issue, but to temporarily place on hold such a process, depending on the circumstances.”

In using the word, he said he was trying to gain the understanding of assembly members that the sister park relationship would be no means absolve the United States of all responsibility for the atomic bombing that killed tens of thousands of people.

After the sister park relationship was announced, peace organizations raised concerns that the arrangement would place the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on the same level of discussion as Japan’s Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, which for many people in the United States remains a sore issue. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said it was a date “which will live in infamy.”

In response to questions from The Asahi Shimbun, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui on Sept. 22 said he did not object to use of the term shelve because it was meant to promote continued peace by the United States and Japan through “future-oriented discussions.”

The issue of whether the United States should be pressed to take responsibility for dropping the atomic bomb remains a sensitive one for organizations of atomic bomb survivors.

Prior to U.S. President Barack Obama’s landmark trip to Hiroshima in 2016, the groups discussed whether they would seek an apology from the first sitting U.S. president to visit the city.

In July 2015, Matsui said the issue was not one of whether the United States would issue an apology. He said he simply hoped the United States would pledge to never repeat such a mistake.

When he first took office in 2011, Matsui said at a news conference he would not insist on an apology from the United States.

So, in this context, use of the term shelve reflects an extension of such thinking.

In 1984 when the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers’ Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) released its basic activities plan, it stated that one goal would be to ask the United States for an apology.

But in the request sent to the United States prior to Obama’s visit by that group, no mention was made of an apology.

“While we never made an apology a condition for visiting Hiroshima, we have always asked for work toward eliminating nuclear weapons as a sign of an apology,” said Terumi Tanaka, 91, a Nihon Hidankyo co-chair. “There is a need for acknowledgement that the use of the nuclear weapon was a mistake and that can never be placed on hold.”

Various groups in Hiroshima are not only frustrated at the lack of progress in ridding the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons, but also increasingly concerned that they might be used by Russia in its war with Ukraine.

“There can be no future-oriented discussions if discussion about responsibility is shelved,” said Tomoko Watanabe, 69, executive director of the nongovernmental organization Asian Network of Trust (ANT)-Hiroshima, which conducts peace education and cultural exchanges.

“To prevent the use of nuclear weapons once again, there is a need to question the responsibility of the United States. But the Hiroshima city government is saying the completely opposite thing.”

(This article was written by Hayashi Yanagawa, Yuhei Kyono and Akari Uozumi.)