Togo Shigenori, the then Japanese Foreign Minister during World War II, spoke of a meeting with the Emperor of Japan on the morning of August 8. During that meeting, the emperor told Togo after the Hiroshima nuclear attack that ‘now that such a deadly weapon had been used against us, we could no longer continue our struggle. Therefore, we must end the war without making long efforts to achieve more favorable conditions, because in the current situation, those efforts will not succeed, so the necessary measures must be taken to end the conflict quickly.’

In his justification for the attack, the then President Truman had said that if the World War II did not end, human society would have to endure another two million deaths. His statements were nothing more than lies and deceptions to distract the world attention; because, according to available information, the course of the war in its final years in the Pacific was changing in favor of the United States. In 1944, the Americans were able to recapture many of the Japanese-occupied positions, including the Marshall Islands, Marianne, and Caroline, using commando operations, occupying the Philippines in January 1945, and the Okinawa Islands in southern Japan.

High heat, radioactive radiation and explosive waves destroyed the city. Many survivors developed cancer and other diseases caused by radiation.

This bombing marked the fate of the World War II in the most tragic way. The use of nuclear weapons has plunged the world into a new cycle of destruction and mass murder. Some historians believe that before those deadly attacks, Japan had prepared itself to surrender, so there was no need for that tragedy to occur. The results show that even if those bombings did not take place, if Russia did not enter into the war and no offensive was planned or carried out, it was possible to besiege Japan. The purpose of that atomic bombing was to make Japan to surrender. Japan realized after the Hiroshima attack that it could not stand against the US nuclear weapons. The United States was well aware of this. The main purpose of those attacks was only to test nuclear destructive weapons on humans and other living creatures. In order to inflict the greatest psychological damage to force Japan to surrender, the US military tried to hit the predetermined targets without prior warning and without announcing their nature.

The US move to use nuclear weapons, which has had an unprecedented adverse effect on the environment, has raised concerns of the world about repetition of that experience. Scientific and international circles have made many efforts to eliminate or at least control its use, including efforts to destroy nuclear weapons through the ratification of comprehensive conventions.

Threatening the future of humanity was the main conceivable consequence of that heinous crime. Hence, it faced a widespread condemnation that continues to this day. What doubled the horror of American crime was that the bombs were dropped on civilian targets. This shows that the US administration in committing such an inhumane act did not pay the slightest attention to the most obvious human rights laws or principles of war. The United States, as the perpetrator of this inhumane and avoidable crime, while falsely continuing to claim to protect human rights, is moving forward in the pursuit of the development and production of atomic bombs, and Japan, as the only victim of atomic bombs in the world history, has failed to ban the production of atomic bombs.

Nuclear weapons are the latest technological advancement in the field of weapons and at the same time the most destructive man-made military tool. The severity of the effects of this weapon is not comparable to other weapons of mass destruction. The uncontrollable and extremely horrific effects of this weapon led the International Court of Justice, in its 1996 advisory judgement on the prohibition of the use of nuclear weapons, to conclude that the effects of the use of nuclear weapons do not fit into time and space and could affect human life, human civilization and destroy the entire ecosystem.

Over the course of 76 years, nuclear weapons have been developed quantitatively and qualitatively, and the inability to control or defend effectively is one of their inherent characteristics. Given the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, the international community was expected to take a firm stand on the use of such weapons and criminalize their use; today, some countries have several thousand nuclear warheads 30 times more destructive than the two bombs used against Japan. In some cases, such as the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZ), it prohibits the use of nuclear weapons, but the prohibition on the use of nuclear weapons is quite meagre and limited.

However, some general principles of the use of force and international human rights governing over the general use of arms may, under certain conditions, prohibit the use of weapons, but there was no ban on the use of nuclear weapons. Efforts to criminalize the use of nuclear weapons and to rectify the failures of previous treaties continued until January 22, 2021, when a new treaty called the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was signed by 86 countries and ratified by 55 UN member states (without mentioning the names of nuclear powers among the signatories of this document).

In recent years, as efforts are being made at global level for nuclear disarmament, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide believes: ‘There is disagreement between nations over how to disarm nuclear weapons. Under these circumstances, realistic measures must be taken to advance nuclear disarmament while eliminating differences between countries that take different positions. It is important to strengthen the international framework for nuclear disarmament and prevent its proliferation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’.

His remarks come as nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia do not support the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Despite the public will of the Japanese people, and especially the survivors of the atomic bombings, the US-backed country has not signed the treaty. The mayor of Nagasaki believes that ‘Japan, as a country that is more aware of the dire consequences of nuclear weapons than any other country, should attend the first meeting of the member states of the UN treaty as an observer to find ways to improve the treaty. I call on Japan to sign and ratify this treaty as soon as possible. We are in a very unfavorable global security environment and we are witnessing inequalities in positions of countries regarding the nuclear weapons.