Hiroshima - Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
The European Union will participate in the Hiroshima summit, which will start tomorrow in Japan, and the European Commission in Brussels said that President Ursula von der Leyen will be on the nineteenth of this month in Hiroshima to attend the G7 summit, which is hosted by Japan, which currently holds the presidency of the group. Michel, this comes as the US President, Joe Biden, arrived today, Thursday, in Japan to participate in the G-7 summit, which is scheduled to start in the city of Hiroshima tomorrow, Friday. According to the Middle East News Agency.
US CNN reported footage of Biden descending the plane ladder, accompanied by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, while Biden is expected to urge during the summit the importance of nuclear disarmament.
Biden is scheduled to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later in the day to seek ways to improve interoperability and cooperation in all areas of the military, including air, sea, land and cyberspace.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Hiroshima Prefecture to host the Group of Seven summit, eager to present his vision of a nuclear-free world in the western Japanese city destroyed in 1945 by a US atomic bomb during World War II.
During the three-day summit starting Friday, Kishida, who is also the deputy representing Hiroshima, and other leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized nations are likely to stress the importance of making sure nuclear weapons are never used again, especially in light of the current growing geopolitical risks from As a result of the Russian military operations against Ukraine.
"I would like to show our commitment to peace from Hiroshima, I hope this summit will be engraved in history," Kishida told reporters at his office in Tokyo before leaving for Hiroshima (in remarks reported by the official Japanese news agency "Kyodo").
He added that the G7 leaders will demonstrate their determination to uphold a rules-based international order, while affirming their determination to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
Japan is hosting the summit for the first time since 2016, with the unit group consisting of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, plus the European Union, seen as increasingly important in countering the war in Ukraine and China's militarism in the Indo-Pacific region. , including what is going on around Taiwan.
On the opening day of the gathering, Kishida is set to welcome the G7 leaders to the Peace Memorial Park, which was built to commemorate the victims of the first nuclear attack in history on August 6, 1945, nine days before Japan surrendered in World War II. In which heads of advanced economies of the Group of Seven (G7) visit the park together, including the heads of the three nuclear-armed countries in the group - the United States, Britain and France
For his part, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated that US President Joe Biden will not apologize for the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima, during his visit to attend the G7 summit.
"The president will not make statements, he will participate in events with other G7 leaders. From his point of view, this is not a two-way moment. The G7 leaders came to pay tribute to history and (Japanese) Prime Minister Kishida from Hiroshima," Sullivan said.
It is worth noting that on August 6, 1945, American planes bombed the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and three days later they bombed the city of Nagasaki, with nuclear bombs. As a result of both attacks, about 300,000 people were injured (between dead and missing), and about 200,000 people were exposed to nuclear radiation.
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only examples in human history of the combat use of nuclear weapons.
Japanese authorities imposed tight security in Hiroshima on Thursday, as the western Japanese city prepares to host a summit of Group of Seven leaders, amid safety concerns heightened by recent attacks on former and current prime ministers.
According to the Japanese "Kyodo" news agency, a tense atmosphere prevailed in the city hosting the talks, which are scheduled to start on Friday and last for three days, as security officers from all over the country patrolled the streets while bus and trolley services were suspended or reduced.
Among the places to be closed is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which the leaders will visit on the first day of the summit.
The police said that up to 24,000 security personnel will be mobilized during the summit, which is much more than the 5,600 soldiers who were mobilized to secure the visit of former US President Barack Obama in May 2016.
The enhanced measures follow the April incident, in which Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was hurled with an explosive device while visiting Wakayama in western Japan, and the fatal shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during an election speech in July last year.
Amid the tense atmosphere, the authorities have already been called in to deal with several false alarms in the city.