TASHKENT, August 7. /Dunyo IA/. Yesterday, Residents of Hiroshima called on world leaders to eliminate nuclear weapons amid rising global tensions as they marked the 81^st Anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city, reports Dunyo IA correspondent.

According to the “Kyodo News” information portal, a minute of silence was observed at 8:15 a.m. - the exact time when the U.S. B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” dropped an atomic bomb containing uranium on the city on August 6, 1945, killing around 140,000 people by the end of that year.

Ceremony was held at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, located near the epicentre of the blast.

Underestimating the inhuman nature of nuclear weapons could ultimately lead to a repetition of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said in the Peace Declaration delivered during the annual memorial ceremony.

His warning came after the latest Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons failed to adopt a consensus document.

Representatives from 121 countries and regions, as well as the European Union, attended the ceremony in Hiroshima.

In his remarks, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated that Japan remains committed to the Three Non-Nuclear Principles and, as the only country to have experienced the horrors of nuclear devastation during wartime, considers it its duty to continue working tirelessly toward the creation of a world free of nuclear weapons.

A statement by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, delivered by UN Deputy Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, called for giving priority to “dialogue over division”.

Photo by “Kyodo News”