Mayor calls on President Obama to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Feb. 3, 2015
Asks Ambassador Kennedy to convey request
by Jumpei Fujimura, Staff Writer
On January 23 Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui visited Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan, at the embassy in Tokyo and asked that President Barack Obama visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In remarks after the meeting, the mayor expressed his hope that the president would come and noted that this year, which marks the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing, “will be a significant year in many ways.”
Akitoshi Nakamura, director of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, accompanied Mayor Matsui to the embassy on behalf of Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue and delivered a letter requesting a visit from the president. In the letter the mayors said, “If you communicate from our cities to the world with this conviction your unshakable determination to eradicate nuclear weapons, it will…ensure the progress of the global movement towards a world free from nuclear weapons.”
The meeting with Ambassador Kennedy was held behind closed doors. According to Mayor Matsui, the ambassador recalled her trips to Hiroshima in August of last year and to Nagasaki in December 2013 and showed a positive attitude toward a presidential visit.
After the meeting, Mayor Matsui said, “We had a good, amiable conversation, and I was able to get my feelings across well. [If the president visits,] it will have an influence on the world’s political leaders.” This was the fourth time since 2009 that the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have asked President Obama to visit their cities.
(Originally published on January 24, 2015)
by Jumpei Fujimura, Staff Writer
On January 23 Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui visited Caroline Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Japan, at the embassy in Tokyo and asked that President Barack Obama visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In remarks after the meeting, the mayor expressed his hope that the president would come and noted that this year, which marks the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing, “will be a significant year in many ways.”
Akitoshi Nakamura, director of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, accompanied Mayor Matsui to the embassy on behalf of Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue and delivered a letter requesting a visit from the president. In the letter the mayors said, “If you communicate from our cities to the world with this conviction your unshakable determination to eradicate nuclear weapons, it will…ensure the progress of the global movement towards a world free from nuclear weapons.”
The meeting with Ambassador Kennedy was held behind closed doors. According to Mayor Matsui, the ambassador recalled her trips to Hiroshima in August of last year and to Nagasaki in December 2013 and showed a positive attitude toward a presidential visit.
After the meeting, Mayor Matsui said, “We had a good, amiable conversation, and I was able to get my feelings across well. [If the president visits,] it will have an influence on the world’s political leaders.” This was the fourth time since 2009 that the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have asked President Obama to visit their cities.
(Originally published on January 24, 2015)
