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U.S. forced to defend Manhattan Project park to Japan

John Roos, the US Ambassador to Japan, has written to Kazumi Matsui, mayor of Hiroshima, to reassure him that the Manhattan Project National Historical Park will serve as "an educational and commemorative facility."

Mr Roos said that a speech by President Barack Obama in Prague in 2009 in which he promised to work towards a world without atomic weapons "marked the beginning of the end of the nuclear weapons era."

"As we look to the future and a world without nuclear weapons, it is fitting to remember that era through the lens of history, which the promised park aims to achieve."

The plans for the three-site park were first detailed in August 2011, with Cindy Kelly, president of the Atomic Heritage Foundation, stating "A national park site would deepen public understanding of the development of the atom bomb in the context of the time, including how its creators felt about it from a moral and personal perspective....

Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)