At Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Monument, Secretary-General Says:  ‘We Must Never Allow

 

Such Devastation to Be Inflicted on any Population, Anywhere, Ever Again’

 

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at a wreath laying at the Hypocenter Monument in Nagasaki, 5 August:

On this location, sixty-five summers ago, a single plane dropped a single bomb.

It left this beautiful city of Nagasaki in ruins.

It took the lives of tens of thousands of men, women and children.

I have come today to pay my respects to their memory.

I have come to honour the hibakusha for the extraordinary hardships they have had to endure.

And I have come to stand in solidarity with the citizens of Nagasaki.

Together with the people of Hiroshima you have created a dynamic partnership for global nuclear disarmament.

This historic site does far more than mark the geographic centre of the bomb’s impact.

It is a monument to the conviction that we must never allow such devastation to be inflicted on any population, anywhere, ever again.

As Secretary-General, I have offered a five-point plan on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

It includes recommendations on security, verification, transparency, conventional weapons and the legal framework for nuclear disarmament.

I am deeply grateful to the citizens and mayors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima for their support.

Their global Mayors for Peace movement now has the support of more than 4,000 mayors worldwide.

I welcome their efforts to gain the support of over 5,000 mayors, representing a combined population of over a billion citizens by the end of the year.

Such activism is one of the best possible ways to respond to the tragedies of these nuclear bombs.

The only way to ensure that such weapons will never again be used is to eliminate them all.

On behalf of the peoples of the United Nations I am honoured to lay this wreath

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For information media • not an official record