Japan perpetrator, not the victim, of war

During the two-day G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, which began on Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry and the other G7 foreign ministers are scheduled to visit the Peace Memorial Park. Since the memorial is dedicated to the victims of the 1945 US atomic bombing of the city, Japanese media see the gesture as a call for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

Japan is the only country to suffer a nuclear attack. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug 6, 1945, and the second on Nagasaki three days later. The atomic bombs not only destroyed Japan's major military arsenals and killed Japanese troops stationed in the two cities, but also claimed the lives of about hundreds of thousands civilians. From a humanitarian point of view, Japan does deserve the world's sympathy.

The Japanese government symbolically chose Hiroshima as the venue for the G7 foreign ministers' meeting. And since Japan is the only victim of nuclear bombings, its call for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation should not be opposed.