Nagasaki has marked 60 years after becoming the second city to suffer atomic attack with it's mayor calling for the United States to give up its nuclear arsenal.
Three days after the world's first atomic bombing reduced Hiroshima to ruins, a second bomb, code-named "Fat Man" after Winston Churchill, hit the hilly southern port of Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people.
Some 6,000 people including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi began with a minute of silent prayer at 11:02 am (0202 GMT), 60 years to the moment after the plutonium bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945.
"To the citizens of America: we understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks," Nagasaki Mayor Iccho Ito told the ceremony in the city's peace park.
"Yet, is your security actually enhanced by your government's policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new 'mini' nuclear weapons?" Ito asked.
"We are confident that the vast majority of you desire in your hearts the elimination of nuclear arms. May you join hands with the people of the world who share that same desire: and world together for a peaceful planet free from nuclear weapons," he said.
Koizumi, who flew to Nagasaki despite a political crisis in Tokyo where he has called early elections, made nearly identical remarks to his statements Saturday in Hiroshima, where more than 140,000 died in the world's first nuclear bombing.
"I give all my heart to the victims," Koizumi said.
"Japan will make an effort to keep world peace and maintain the three non-nuclear principles and a peaceful constitution," Koizumi said.
He was referring to Japan's 1967 commitment not to produce, possess or allow the entry into its territory of nuclear weapons.
Koizumi, who faces a new election on September 11, has favored revisions to the US-imposed 1947 pacifist constitution to recognize that Japan has a military.
PHOTO CAPTION
Doves fly over the Peace statue during the 60th Nagasaki Peace Ceremony at the Peace park in Nagasaki city. (AFP)