LEADERS of the Group of Seven rich nations were met with peace demonstrations as they gathered in the Japanese city of Hiroshima today.

Protesters stressed the irony of meeting to discuss pumping more military hardware into Ukraine in the place where the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.

The United States, the only country to have used the atomic bomb, killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima on August 6 before, three days later, killing another 70,000 at Nagasaki.

Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reportedly chose the city in part to highlight his country’s nuclear nonproliferation efforts. 

Mr Kishida greeted leaders from the G7 today at the city’s Peace Memorial Park and escorted them to pay respects to those who died from the attack after seeing exhibits at a museum dedicated to them, and meeting with a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. 

He has pledged to act as a bridge between nuclear and non-nuclear states, but some critics say his disarmament goals are hollow. 

Japan is part of the United States “nuclear umbrella” and has been rapidly expanding its military as the US ramps up its cold war against China.

But ahead of the summit there was the first of a series of planned peace demonstrations to be held in Hiroshima over the weekend.

Sueichi Kido, an 83-year-old “hibakusha” or survivor of the Nagasaki explosion, says he is sceptical about the prospects of making real disarmament progress.

“But because they are meeting in Hiroshima I do have a sliver of hope that they will have positive talks and make a tiny step toward nuclear disarmament,” Mr Kido said.

“I earnestly want the leaders to have a firm understanding of what the atomic bombs did to human beings,” Mr Kido said. “Many people think of the mushroom clouds, but they often don’t know what happened to the people under them.”

Prime Minister Kishida has been criticised by survivors for his plans to double Japan’s defence budget in the next five years. 

An estimated 12,705 nuclear warheads are stockpiled as of 2022,  according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima atomic bombing survivor and activist based in Canada, said: “For many years, atomic bombing survivors have raised the torch of achieving peace by de-nuclearisation. 

“We need younger and stronger hands who can succeed the torch and raise it even higher so its light can be seen from around the world.”