Marking the anniversary of the first use of the devastating nuclear weapons by the United States against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, the World Peace Council expresses its solidarity with the Japanese people who were victims of the catastrophe caused by a imperialist power that does not measure the consequences to achieve its objectives.

On this 73rd anniversary, as we honor the memory of the more than 200,000 victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings and welcome the determination of the survivors who have taken up the struggle against nuclear weapons, we must emphasize all peace-loving forces' complete rejection of the use of the devastation and massacre of peoples as a threatening technique.

As in the case of the Japanese cities' bombings, which the United States still claims to have attacked with such destructive power to cause Japan to surrender and to end World War II, the attempt by those responsible to justify the use of these horrendous weapons of death must be rejected in the strongest terms.

As we have reiterated, the tragedy inflicted on the Japanese people by the inauguration of the atomic bomb was an outrageous affront to the whole humanity and, therefore, its repetition must be fought also by all humanity. Moreover, the environment of threat, nuclear blackmail and imminence of annihilation can never lead to peace, only to terror and domination or, in the case of the use of such weapons, to devastation.

However, nuclear tests and the proliferation and dissemination of arsenals throughout the planet are the news that our struggle is facing, while conflicts and disputes in various regions intensify and threaten peoples with a more comprehensive war of unprecedented proportions.

Almost seven decades ago the World Peace Council launched its Stockholm Appeal against this and other weapons of mass destruction, a call endorsed by hundreds of millions of people across the globe. Yet, in direct confrontation with the will of the peoples, the imperialist powers, especially those that are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), advance theses based on anachronistic presuppositions of confrontation and threat of annihilation, seeking to modernize their arsenals and disseminate them, by making them more agile, more devastating, and supposedly more controlled, facilitating or seeking to make their use more trivial.

We have argued that, in addition to the fact that the reduction of arsenals is extremely slow in the face of the commitments demanded by the peoples of the world, this decrease is illusory, since the armaments have been modernized to reach greater distances or to cause greater concentrated damages. In addition, through its nuclear sharing program, NATO has distributed nuclear warheads across Europe. Israel, which has produced between 80 and 200 warheads, remains unmonitored in its own program, while promoting an almost insane endeavor to wage a war against Iran.

That is why, as we have said, there is an urgent need to strengthen the struggle of all peace-loving forces across the globe against nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, for their complete abolition. The goal of an equitable international order of cooperation and shared progress is not at all compatible with an order of domination and threat of annihilation by a handful of powers possessing nuclear arsenals, which develop and position such weapons throughout the world according to their geostrategic interests.

We call for the decisive breakthrough in initiatives to deepen non-proliferation commitments and complete abolition of all weapons of mass destruction. We demand the completion of such commitments for their broad, urgent, monitored implementation, while strengthening our joint struggle for peace and for an equitable international order based on friendship and cooperation among peoples.

We reaffirm once again our solidarity with the Japanese people on this anniversary and our resolute support for their struggle for recognition and redress.

End the threat of devastation and annihilation, abolish weapons of mass destruction!

Long live the friendship between peoples and the struggle for peace!

Socorro Gomes
President of the World Peace Council