No US envoy as Nagasaki marks A-bomb after 65 years

The Japanese city of Nagasaki commemorated the 65th anniversary Monday of its destruction by a US atomic bomb, with representatives from Britain and France attending for the first time.

However, the absence of a US representative at the ceremony irritated some Nagasaki A-bomb survivors after Washington sent an envoy Friday for the first time to the commemoration of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

The US embassy in Tokyo said in a statement that Ambassador John Roos, who attended the Hiroshima memorial, did not visit Nagasaki due to "scheduling reasons."

His presence in Hiroshima was seen as a reflection of US President Barack Obama's push for a world without nuclear weapons, it added.

"I think the US is impolite," Sumiteru Taniguchi, 81, the head of the council of A-bomb survivors in Nagasaki, told Jiji Press. "I wanted them to come to Nagasaki and apologize."

The US has never acceded to demands in Japan for an apology for the loss of innocent lives in the atomic bombings, which many historians say were necessary to bring a quick end to the war and avoid a land invasion that would have likely been even more costly, based on previous loss of life in WWII.

AFP