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Your
Royal Highness Princess Raiya bint Al-Hussein deputizing H.R.H.
Princess Aisha bint Al-Hussein,
Excellencies, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I welcome you all to this event, Hiroshima Week in
Amman
”.
First of all, I would like to express my
sincere gratitude to Her Royal Highness for her generous patronage on
this important event, which is initiated by Dr. Ayman Khalil of the
Center for Security Studies. I
am also grateful to His Excellency Professor Huneiti for giving
students the chance to be aware of nuclear weapons terror through this
event.
Sixty years have passed since an atomic bomb exploded for the first
time in history over
Hiroshima
on
6 August 1945
. Approximately
140,000 people perished by the end of 1945 as a result of the
explosion. I used the word
“approximately”, because no one can confirm the exact number of
causalities as families are believed to have disappeared with all
their members in a flash. Radiation
effects have hurt the survivors and more than 50,000 of the city
citizens passed away in the years to come as a result of symptoms and
diseases developed by the after effects.
Furthermore, anguish has tormented the survivors longer and
deeper than physical pain. Three
days after
Hiroshima
explosion another atomic bomb exploded over
Nagasaki
.
Atomic bombs are produced in the pursuit of
political, military and scientific ambitions.
Since the beginning, mankind ought to have conquered these
ambitions following the dictates of reason.
On the contrary, mankind began to possess nuclear weapons.
Dear guests,
We must never use any weapon of mass destruction again, we must not
repeat the tragedy of
Hiroshima
and
Nagasaki
. This
is the sincere wish of the Japanese Government and its people, who
have appealed to the world, in particular to nuclear-weapon states, to
totally eliminate nuclear weapons with the aim of achieving a peaceful
and safe world.
I hope, the esteemed guests and students will understand the misery
and horribleness of atomic bombs through this Hiroshima Week, and make
efforts to step forward towards the total elimination of nuclear
weapons.
Thank
you very much. |