Pope Francis has called for a world free of nuclear weapons as he visited Nagasaki, the second city in history to suffer an atomic bombing and the site of mass executions in the 16th century when Christianity was expelled from Japan.

The rare papal visit to Japan — the first in almost 40 years — came with a strong political message, highlighting the nuclear stand-off with North Korea and the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which threatens to spark a nuclear arms race in Asia. 

Speaking through heavy rain at the Nagasaki Hypocentre Park, where the second nuclear bomb exploded on August 9, 1945 and killed around 75,000 people, Pope Francis said: “One of the deepest longings of the human heart is for security, peace and stability. The possession of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction is not the answer to this desire.”