Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Thursday failed to explicitly pledge that Japan will maintain its non-nuclear principles, simply saying the government “is upholding” the long-held policy, as the country marked the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima. People offer prayers for the victims ahead of the Peace Memorial Ceremony on the 81st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. “However, it remains unchanged that Japan firmly upholds the three non-nuclear principles in the direction of its policy,” she said. Recent prime ministers, including Shigeru Ishiba and Fumio Kishida, said in their speeches at the annual ceremonies marking the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9 that Japan will maintain the non-nuclear principles. But the late prime minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi’s political mentor, refrained in his 2015 address from referring to the principles, the only time he omitted mentioning them during his second stint as prime minister that lasted for about seven years and nine months from December 2012.