Japan’s Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui on Wednesday encouraged President Trump to visit the city to understand the impact of nuclear warfare after the leader compared the U.S. strikes on Iran to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of 1945.
The airstrike committed during World War II within a three day span resulted in a total of 214,000 deaths and long-lasting adverse health effects on the surrounding community.
“It seems to me that he does not fully understand the reality of the atomic bombings, which, if used, take the lives of many innocent citizens, regardless of whether they were friend or foe, and threaten the survival of the human race,” Matsui told reporters Wednesday, according to The Japan Times.
“I wish that President Trump would visit the bombed area to see the reality of the atomic bombing and feel the spirit of Hiroshima, and then make statements,” he added.
Matsui’s comments came almost a week after Trump told reporters the U.S. attack on Iran’s three nuclear facilities were “essentially the same thing” as the attacks on Japan 80 years prior.
“That ended that war and this ended (this war),” Trump said at a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands.
But survivors from the 1945 attack took offense to the president’s comments and gathered at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial to protest his remarks, The Japan Times reported.
City leaders also passed a resolution condemning statements that justify the use of atomic bombs.
Last month, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also warned against nuclear warfare after visiting Hiroshima.
“I recently visited Hiroshima in Japan and stood at the epicenter of a city that remains scarred by the unimaginable horror caused by a single nuclear bomb dropped in 1945, 80 years ago,” Gabbard said in a social media clip reflecting on her trip.
“It’s hard for me to find the words to express what I saw, the stories that I heard, the haunting sadness that still remains. This is an experience that will stay with me forever,” she added.
Gabbard received pushback from Trump for publicly stating that Iran was not building nuclear weapons ahead of the U.S. airstrike.
She later reversed course after receiving a stark rebuke from the president and said the Middle Eastern country could produce nuclear weapons “within weeks” based on internal assessments.
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