Oslo. Terumi Tanaka, a representative of the organization that survived the US atomic bomb attack on Japan and won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop making nuclear threats. Terumi, now 92, called on Russian President Putin to stop making nuclear threats on Monday, a day before a news conference in Oslo, Norway. He is to deliver a lecture at the ceremony on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo, the organization that won this year’s prize, and survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Asked by a reporter if he had a message for Putin, Tanaka said that the Russian leader repeatedly threatens nuclear attack but that he must understand how devastating the use of nuclear weapons would be. He said his organization’s message to Putin is that “nuclear weapons are things that should never be used.” He said this has also been conveyed directly to the Russian leader. “I don’t think he ever thought about it or understood it,” Tanaka said through a translator. Therefore, they are able to say things like this. So I think we have to change their way of thinking.”
The first American atomic bomb detonated the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing 140,000 people. The second bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 killed 70,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II. Japan’s Kyodo news agency says Tanaka was 13 years old and living in Nagasaki when the US dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Tanaka did not suffer any major injuries in the attack, but he lost five members of his family. He said that the images of burnt bodies in the devastated city are still etched in his memory.
