Hiroshima and Nagasaki Memorial: Austria Calls for Disarmament

More+Events ♦ Published: August 5, 2021; 14:13 ♦ (Vindobona)

On the 76th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg called for nuclear disarmament. They highlighted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), signed earlier this year, as a good starting point.

"The victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remind us that the threat of nuclear weapons is not an issue of the past but remains one of the greatest existential dangers to humanity." - Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / United States Department of Energy [Public Domain]

In August 1945, the United States of America dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and effectively ending World War II.

These are the only two uses of nuclear weapons in war, but they began an era of significant nuclear proliferation and testing.

On the 76th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg renewed the call for nuclear disarmament. …