Overview
- Approximately 55,000 participants from a record 120 countries gathered at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park for the 80th-anniversary ceremony.
- Survivors, whose average age now exceeds 86, appealed for global leaders to preserve hibakusha testimonies before they vanish.
- EU High Representative Kaja Kallas and Germany’s foreign minister reaffirmed support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and New START extensions.
- Japan’s government declined to sign or observe the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, citing its security dependence on the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
- Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have reinvigorated deterrence arguments and deepened public debate over the bombing’s moral and strategic legacy.