Japan denotes WWII's end, Kishida doesn't make reference to animosity!!
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida renewed Japan's no-war pledge at a somber ceremony Monday as his country marked the 77th anniversary of its World War II defeat.
In his first address as prime minister since taking office in October, Kishida said Japan will “stick to our resolve to never repeat the tragedy of the war."
Kishida did not mention Japanese aggression across Asia in the first half of the 20th century or the victims in the region.
The omission was a precedent set by the assassinated former leader Shinzo Abe, who had pushed to whitewash Japan’s wartime brutality.
Beginning in 2013, Abe stopped acknowledging Japan’s wartime hostilities or apologizing in his Aug. 15 speeches, scrapping the tradition that began in 1995.
Some 900 participants observed a minute of silence at noon during the ceremony held at the Budokan arena.
The crowd was reduced from about 5,000 before the pandemic, participants were asked to wear masks, and there was no singing of the national anthem.