Rudd, who visited the Hiroshima Peace Park, a memorial to the victims of the nuclear attack, as part of his four day visit to Japan said Hiroshima should cause the world community to resolve afresh that all human-kind must exert every effort for peace.
"In this 21st century that we, the people of the Asian-Pacific region, should resolve afresh to make the Asia-Pacific century a century of peace and that the world at large should aspire now for a world free of nuclear weapons," Rudd said, according to media reports in Melbourne.
Rudd had last year taken a hard line on nuclear issues and reversed a decision to sell uranium to India because New Delhi is not a signatory to nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
His commitment on nuclear issues will likely be welcomed in Japan, where the election of Rudd's Labor Party was received with some unease last year.
Japanese officials were privately irate when Rudd visited China rather than Japan on his first major overseas visit that also took him to the US and Europe.
The United States had dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima city on 6th August 1945, followed by an even more devastating nuclear bomb on Nagasaki three days later killing over 200,000 people either immediately or later from effects of radiation.
The second world war ended soon thereafter, following Japan's surrender.
Source: By DDNEWS
