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The members of the G7 – the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and Italy – in Hiroshima, Japan: Striving for nuclear disarmament
Photo: IMAGO/G7 Hiroshima Summit / IMAGO/UPI Photo
At the summit meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, the leading democratic economic powers (G7) committed themselves to nuclear disarmament for the first time in a joint declaration. In the so-called "Hiroshima Vision" on nuclear disarmament, the heads of state and government sharply criticized Russia's blatant threat to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine and expressed their concern about China's nuclear armament.
Hiroshima was destroyed by a U.S. atomic bomb in 1945. Three days later, another bomb hit Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands were killed. They were the first and so far last atomic bombs used in the war.
They met in Hiroshima at a "historic moment" that, along with Nagasaki, "commemorates the unprecedented destruction and immeasurable human suffering," the statement said. We underline the importance of the 77-year renunciation of the use of nuclear weapons," the G7 said. Russia's irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, undermining arms control regimes and its stated intention to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus are dangerous and unacceptable," it said. A nuclear war cannot be won "and must never be fought."
China's "accelerated build-up of its nuclear arsenal without transparency and meaningful dialogue" also poses a "threat to global and regional stability," the statement said. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons must be upheld as a basis for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, it said. The goal of a "world without nuclear weapons" must be achieved through a "realistic, pragmatic and responsible approach," the G7 declared.
jso/dpa