“Downplaying the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and accepting the use of force to pursue one’s own prosperity risk cycles of violent retaliation that could ultimately result in another Hiroshima or Nagasaki,” Mayor Kazumi Matsui said. Too many political leaders still consider nuclear deterrence a realistic approach and legitimise violence, which “simply pushes a world without nuclear weapons further into the distance,” Mr Matsui said in his peace declaration at the ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Ms Takaichi has advocated a review of the principles for a possibility of dropping the third one — of not permitting nuclear weapons to be brought into the country. Because of that, Japan’s government has rejected the survivors’ request to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or attend its meetings as observers. “The horror of nuclear weapons is just one lesson of Hiroshima.