HIROSHIMA, Japan, May 21 — The leaders of the world’s seven leading industrialised democracies (G7) have shown “unwavering unity” in supporting Ukraine to fend off the Russian invasion at a summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, according to the host country.
The attendance of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in person at the leaders’ meeting helped send “a strong message” to the world, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Sunday after the end of the three-day summit, reported German news agency dpa.
“I think this was of very great importance,” he added. Unilateral attempts to change the status quo – “no matter where in the world” – by force would not be accepted by the G7, Kishida said.
Threats to use nuclear weapons “should not be accepted,” Kishida said, referring to Russian indications over the past months. The G7 countries were pursuing the “ideal” of ridding the world of nuclear weapons, he said.
“A dream is different from an ideal. Ideals are achievable,” the Japanese leader said. “We are all citizens of Hiroshima” who yearned for peace, said Kishida, who is from the Japanse city, which was destroyed on August 6, 1945 by the first atomic bomb ever dropped in a war, himself.
“If all 8 billion people in the world become citizens of Hiroshima, there will be no more nuclear weapons on this planet. I firmly believe in that,” Kishida said.
