US Ambassador to Japan to skip Nagasaki peace ceremony after Israel excluded

Tokyo CNN —

US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel will sit out Nagasaki’s peace ceremony over Israel’s exclusion from the annual commemoration of the 1945 atomic bombing of the city, the embassy said.

This year’s ceremony will take place at Nagasaki Peace Park on Friday, where diplomats from more than 100 countries will observe a minute of silence to mark the moment the US dropped the second atomic bomb in Japan during World War II.

Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki told reporters last week that Israel would be excluded due to security concerns, despite warnings from Western nations that there could be implications for the attendance of their own ambassadors.

“Should Israel be excluded, it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation in this event,” said a July 19 letter to the mayor signed by ambassadors from France, Germany, Italy and the US, as well as the chargé d’affaires from Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Britain, Germany, and Italy will also not send their ambassadors to Nagasaki, their embassies told CNN on Thursday. CNN has reached out to the other remaining signatories.

The bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later led to Japan’s unconditional surrender and brought an end to World War II. But it also killed tens of thousands of people, both instantly and in the months and years to come due to radiation sickness.

Each year the two cities hold memorials attended by diplomats to promote global peace and the idea that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

The move by Nagasaki contrasts with that of Hiroshima, which hosted its ceremony on Tuesday and invited Israeli ambassador to Japan Gilad Cohen, whose presence was met with protests from