Secretary-General Urges All to Work towards Nuclear-Weapon-Free World as Global Children’s Peace Forum Commemorates Atomic Bombing of Japan

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message, as delivered by Kim Won-soo, Acting High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, for the 2015 International Children’s Peace Forum, in Nagasaki City today:

I am pleased to send warm greetings to all participants at the 2015 Children’s Peace Forum taking place as part of the solemn commemorations of the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombings in Japan.  I am especially grateful that young people from more than 160 countries, as well as local students, are gathering to remember the past and resolve to create a new future.

The international community must heed the lessons of these terrible events, which are a vivid reminder of the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.  Now more than ever, we must work for a nuclear-weapon-free world.

I have had the privilege of meeting with atomic bomb survivors.  I understand you will also hear from these hibakusha.  For seven decades, they have stood in living testimony to the devastating effects of nuclear weapons.  In the process, they have demonstrated true courage, using their own painful experiences to educate the world in order to prevent others from suffering a similar fate.

We must carry on their principled demands for a nuclear-weapon-free world until this vision is realized.  In that spirit, I hope you have a most enriching experience at this Forum that will inspire you to action.