TOKYO: A Chinese representative will for the first time attend the annual ceremony marking the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, officials said, in a move welcomed by the city.

China will send a diplomat stationed in the western Japanese city of Osaka to the August 6 event in Hiroshima marking the anniversary of the world's first nuclear attack, an official at the Osaka mission said.

The decision was welcomed in Hiroshima, which each year invites representatives of the world's eight declared nuclear powers to take part in the event.

"We the citizens of Hiroshima are extremely happy to receive the Chinese consul. We believe this is a positive step as we hope for the eventual, complete abolition of nuclear weapons," said a city spokesman.

So far India, Pakistan and Russia are the only nuclear powers that have sent representatives to the ceremony, the spokesman said. Russia will again send a diplomat to next month's event.

The other declared nuclear states - Britain, France, North Korea and the United States - have never attended the ceremony, the spokesman said.

The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in the early morning of August 6, 1945, killing about 140,000 people either immediately or in the months that followed from radiation injuries or horrific burns.

Three days later, an even more powerful nuclear bomb flattened Nagasaki, killing another 70,000 people. Japan surrendered six days afterwards, ending World War II.

Japan has since been a steadfast opponent of nuclear weapons, although some conservative lawmakers called for a debate on breaking the taboo after North Korea tested an atomic bomb in 2006.

- AFP/yb