TOKYO: Ambassadors from Western international locations together with the US will skip a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki after Israel was snubbed, officers mentioned on Wednesday (Aug 7).
Nagasaki’s mayor final week mentioned that Israel’s ambassador Gilad Cohen was not invited to Friday’s occasion within the southern Japanese metropolis due to the danger of attainable protests over the Gaza battle.
The US and British embassies mentioned on Tuesday that their ambassadors wouldn’t participate consequently, and that their international locations could be represented by lower-ranking diplomats.
Media experiences mentioned that Australia, Italy, Canada and the European Union, who along with the US, Britain and Germany signed a strongly worded joint letter to Nagasaki’s mayor final month, would observe go well with.
US ambassador Rahm Emanuel is not going to attend “after the mayor of Nagasaki politicised the occasion by not inviting the Israeli ambassador”, an embassy spokesperson advised AFP.
As a substitute, Emanuel, 64, who was ex-president Barack Obama’s chief of workers, will go to a separate occasion at a temple in Tokyo, the spokesperson mentioned.
The British embassy mentioned that ambassador Julia Longbottom would additionally not be in Nagasaki, saying that not inviting Israel “creates an unlucky and deceptive equivalency with Russia and Belarus – the one different international locations not invited to this 12 months’s ceremony”.
A spokesperson for the French embassy mentioned that its quantity two would attend, telling AFP that the “determination to not invite the consultant of Israel is regrettable and questionable”.
Nagasaki mayor Shiro Suzuki had mentioned final week that the choice to not invite Cohen was “not politically motivated” however primarily based on a want to “maintain the ceremony in a peaceable and sombre environment”.
In June, Suzuki mentioned Nagasaki had despatched a letter to the Israeli embassy calling for an “speedy ceasefire” in Gaza.
Cohen, who was invited to and attended a memorial ceremony on Tuesday in Hiroshima, final week had mentioned the Nagasaki determination “sends a unsuitable message to the world”.
“As a detailed good friend and like-minded nation of Japan, Israel has attended this ceremony for a few years to honour the victims and their households,” he wrote on social media platform X.
On Monday Cohen advised US broadcaster CNN that the safety issues had been “invented” and that he was “actually shocked by (Suzuki) hijacking this ceremony for his political motivations”.
Of their letter to Suzuki seen by AFP, the six Western envoys had warned that if Israel was excluded “it could grow to be tough for us to have high-level participation at this occasion”.
Authorities spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi on Wednesday declined to remark, saying invites had been “a choice for the organiser, Nagasaki Metropolis”.
A Nagasaki official in control of the ceremony mentioned it was “clearly higher to have high-level people, like ambassadors themselves, collaborating”.
“What’s necessary is that representatives of the international locations will attend the ceremony,” he advised AFP.
