In Hiroshima, the G7 remembers the victims of the atomic bomb and announces new sanctions against Russia

G7 leaders staged their rejection of the use of nuclear weapons this Friday during their visit to Hiroshima, the first city to suffer the horrors of an atomic bombing, and announced a new round of sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine.

In a joint statement issued after a meeting dedicated to Ukraine, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada announced measures to “deprive Russia of G7 technology, industrial equipment and services which are basis of his war machine”. in Ukraine.

The leaders of the Group of Seven, which includes three atomic powers (United States, France and the United Kingdom), jointly visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum and Park (Western Japan) for the first time, before starting the 49th summit of this forum in this Japanese city.

The Ukrainian war was the most important topic in the discussions of this first day, marked by confusion over the possible assistance to Hiroshima by the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, given the contradictory information offered by sources in Kyiv and the G7.

Gift

The Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, wants the nuclear disarmament be one of the big themes of the summit, where he serves as host, and to that end he guided his G7 colleagues through the facilities dedicated to paying tribute to the hundreds of thousands of people who died from the US bomb dropped on the city on 6 August 1945.

Kishida spent more time during the visit speaking with US President Joe Biden and receiving nods from French President Emmanuel Macron before all leaders paid their silent respects and bowed before the epitaph dedicated to the victims.

Particularly enthusiastic were British leader Rishi Sunak and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, while Biden remained serious throughout the event. The current Oval Office occupant is the second sitting U.S. president to visit the Peace Museum and Park after Barack Obama in 2016.

World leaders also met with a Hiroshima “hibakusha” (survivor), Keiko Ogura, 85, who was eight when the tragedy struck.

Ogura devoted most of his life to spreading his tragic experiences of the nuclear attack and told how that day the city became “a sea of ​​fire” where figures that looked like ghosts moved trying to leave him.

G7 leaders intend to express in their joint statement following the summit their will to achieve a world free from nuclear weapons, although the foreseeable lack of concrete steps towards this goal has been criticized by anti-nuclear organizations and some voices in Japan, the country covered by the US nuclear “umbrella”.

Punishment in Moscow

The Group of Seven presented this Friday at new set of penalties to make Russia pay for the war in Ukraine and to cut off its invasion funding routes, and reaffirmed its commitment to support Kiev financially, humanitarianally, militarily and diplomatically, in a joint statement.

The decision was led by the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, which detailed theirs new pressure measurements in conjunction with the joint declaration, while the EU member countries (Germany, France and Italy) are preparing a new package of coordinated sanctions within the Twenty-seven and Japan expects to announce similar measures shortly.

The G7 leaders also stressed in the text that a “just peace” cannot be achieved without the “complete and unconditional withdrawal” of Russian troops, and reaffirmed their commitment to the approaches to achieving peace initiated by the Ukrainian president.

Volodimir Zelensky in Hiroshima?

Without being present at the summit, and with his electronic participation in principle expected in the sessions dedicated to the war in Ukraine over the next few days, Zelenski has become the great protagonist of the first day of the G7.

During the day, there was talk of the first-person presence of the Ukrainian leader, who will travel to Hiroshima on Saturday and Sunday after receiving Kishida in Kiev in March, and after his recent visits to other G7 members France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom to meet their respective leaders.

Zelensky himself announced on Friday that he had traveled to Saudi Arabia, where the annual meeting of Arab League heads of state begins, after official Ukrainian sources reported on his planned trip to Hiroshima and later they will correctnoting that your participation in the summit will take place via videoconference.

Even so, other G7 sources continued to claim that Zelenski will travel to Hiroshima, so his presence remained unknown this Friday.

Source: EFE