Japan: A-bomb attacks 'couldn't be helped'

Japan’s defence minister said the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War “couldn’t be helped”, according to a report today.

“The bombing ended the war, and I think that couldn’t be helped,” Fumio Kyuma said in a speech reported by Kyodo News agency.

Japan is the only nation to have suffered a nuclear attack, when the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of the war.