Overview

• Approximately 55,000 attendees from a record 120 countries gathered in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park for the 80th anniversary ceremony.
• Survivors, whose average age now exceeds 86, warned that growing acceptance of nuclear deterrence threatens to erase the living testimony of hibakusha.
• Mayor Kazumi Matsui cautioned that embracing nuclear weapons risks undermining the hard-won peacebuilding frameworks derived from historical lessons.
• The Japanese government rejected survivors’ appeals to sign or observe meetings of the global ban treaty, reaffirming its reliance on U.S. strategic deterrence.
• German Foreign Minister Volker Wadephul and UN disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu urged renewed disarmament measures and warned that nuclear war cannot be won or repeated.