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Hiroshima mayor asks U.S. to cancel B-52 flights

 

Hiroshima Mayor Akiba Tadatoshi on April 25 wrote to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer and U.S. Marine Corps Iwakuni Air Station Commander Michael A. OfHalloran requesting that the planned B-52 bomber flights during an airshow at the base be cancelled.

 

The B-52 is a nuclear-capable strategic bomber.

 

Citing the crash in Spain of a B-52 carrying nuclear bombs in the 1960s and an explosion of a B-52 in Okinawa in 1969, Akiba pointed to the danger that the aircraft poses.

 

Pointing out that Japan and the United States reached an agreement in 1972 to allow B-52s to fly in Japanese airspace only in emergencies such as during a  typhoon, the Hiroshima mayor said that the planned flight to Iwakuni has nothing to do with an emergency.

 

gMany Hiroshima citizens, in particular Hibakusha (atomic-bomb survivors) cannot allow B-52s, that can carry nuclear weapons, to be flown near Hiroshima, the first city to come under nuclear attack and a city continuing to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons and for lasting world peace.h

 

The Hiroshima mayor also asked Foreign Minister Komura Masahiko to request the United States to cancel the planned B-52 flights.

- Akahata, April 28, 2008 

 

 



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