Shiro Suzuki, the mayor of the Japanese city of Nagasaki, on Friday called on Japan's defense minister to visit the atomic bomb sites and learn about the inhumanity and cruelty of nuclear weapons before debating security policy, in a direct response to recent remarks by Shinjiro Koizumi.

"I want him to visit the bombed areas, learn about the inhumanity and cruelty of nuclear weapons and then hold discussions on security," Suzuki told a press conference.

Koizumi, defense minister since October 2025, said in an online program on July 17 that Japan should "discuss all policies without taboo," naming nuclear as an issue the country "cannot avoid" touching on. 

In a separate press conference the same day, Kazumi Matsui, mayor of another atomic bomb site, Hiroshima, released the outline of the city's peace declaration for the August 6 ceremony. The declaration warns that disregarding the inhumanity of nuclear weapons "could create a third Hiroshima and Nagasaki" and notes that "a world without nuclear weapons is receding" as leaders keep relying on nuclear deterrence. It urges leaders to visit the bombed cities and act for abolition.

Bomb-affected people and China have voiced opposition to Koizumi's remarks. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian has called them "extremely rare, provocative and dangerous" for a serving defense official.

Under Japan's Three Non-Nuclear Principles, the country neither possesses, produces nor permits the introduction of nuclear weapons into its territory.

The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later. Both cities, which mark the 81st anniversary of the bombings this August, have since become global symbols of the push for nuclear abolition.