Japan's Empress Michiko supports President Obama on nuclear disarmament

October 26, 11:27 PMObama Administration ExaminerKaren Harper

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Obama Administration Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

 

Empress Michiko was born in Tokyo on October 20, 1934.  To mark her 75h birthday, she produced a written statement praising President Obama's April speech in Prague according to The Telegraph.  She wrote that he had shown a "strong determination to eliminate nuclear weapons" and intimated that this had contributed to his winning the Nobel peace prize.

Michiko wrote about the horrific destruction caused by nuclear weapons.  She was a ten year old school girl in Tokyo when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.  

Michiko wrote, "As a country which has suffered atomic bombings, I believe that Japan should make efforts to seek further and deeper understanding of this from the international community."

But some in Japan feel that disarmament isn't moving quickly enough.  Kazuo Okoshi, 69, of the Hiroshima Council of A-Bomb Suffers Organizations told the Japan Times on Saturday, "We, the survivors, would like to see the goal (of a nuclear-free world) while we are alive."

The International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) held a three day meeting in Hiroshima last week and created a time table for reducing nuclear weapons.  But while ICNND is calling for a reduction in nuclear weapons, Okoshi's group as well as Mayors for Peace would like to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to zero.

For more information:  The Japan Times Online, The Telegraph