Japanese leaders and survivors of the atomic bombings have denounced President Donald Trump’s comparison of the US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities to the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, describing his remarks as deeply inappropriate and historically insensitive.
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Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki condemned Trump’s comments, saying the use of nuclear weapons was “unacceptable” no matter the circumstances – a lesson that should be self-evident from the devastating toll of the US bombing of his city on August 9, 1945.
The initial explosion from the “Fat Man” plutonium bomb killed as many as 80,000 people in Nagasaki, while many tens of thousands more died before the end of 1945 from radiation poisoning.
Suzuki said he did not understand what Trump meant in his comments. If they were designed to justify the nuclear attacks on Japan, Nagasaki and its people would express “profound regret”, he added.
Trump’s comments, delivered during a joint press conference with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte in The Hague on Wednesday, have drawn confusion and criticism for their ambiguity.
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“The damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities is extremely serious. That attack ended the war. I don’t want to use Hiroshima as an example. I don’t want to use Nagasaki as an example. But essentially it’s the same. It ended the war,” Trump said.