MOSCOW. Aug 4 (Interfax) - The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should eventually receive a legal evaluation, these crimes have no statute of limitations, Russian State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said.
"This barbaric, cynical act targeted against civilian population, which is not justified by anything from a military viewpoint, should be classed as a crime against humanity, which has no statute of limitations. However, it still does not have a proper legal evaluation," Naryshkin said on Thursday in the state corporation Rosatom during a debate timed to the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Attempts are being made to remove "the bad moral aspect" of these crimes from the memory of humanity using various methods, Naryshkin said.
"Our country is against such ignoring and forgetting," the politician said, adding that this position has historical grounds.
The "authors" expected the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to become a threat to the Soviet Union, Naryshkin said.
"The American authorities then sacrificed thousands of human lives for that purpose," he said.
"Contemporaries knew that very well, and the future generations have no right to forget about that," he said.
It was Soviet Union that created a counterbalance to the American bomb, ensured strategic parity and thus prevented a nuclear war, Naryshkin said.
"Finally, it was our country that opened the history of peaceful atom and thus changed the entire development of the nuclear industry different, making it constructive," he said.
Naryshkin said humanity has lived in a nuclear era for over seventy years now.
"Even if someone wanted to, it is impossible to go back to the past, re-write the history of science and technology, forget about the reverse tragic side of such powerful discoveries and breakthrough technologies," Naryshkin said.
It is important no only to defend oneself from them, but also use then safely in peaceful life, the speaker said.
"Unfortunately, those American politicians and military who opened the nuclear era did not have such an understanding and such responsibility," he said.