A-bomb survivors urge no nuclear weapons on Iraq


Saturday, February 1, 2003 at 10:00 JST
 http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=247943

TOKYO — Atomic-bomb survivors in Japan and nuclear radiation sufferers around the world jointly issued a statement Friday urging that nuclear weapons not be used anywhere in the world in the face of a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.

The statement, composed by the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, was signed by representatives of support groups for atomic-bomb survivors in the United States, South Korea and Brazil. It was also endorsed by groups representing residents near nuclear testing sites in the U.S. and Russia.

The confederation said it will mail the statement to U.S. President George Bush and other world leaders in the hope of stopping the attack on Iraq and any use of nuclear weapons.

The joint statement says the use of weapons with a destructive power hundreds of times that of the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 would result in slaughter and radiation beyond imagination.

"Even atomic-bomb survivors in the U.S., who had found it difficult to ask that nuclear weapons be abolished, are saying, 'Don't attack Iraq'," said Hidenori Yamamoto, deputy head of the confederation.

"The use of just one nuclear weapon would lead to the use of hundreds of them," Yamamoto said. (Kyodo News)