U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass will not attend this year’s peace ceremonies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to honor the victims of the 1945 atomic bombings of the cities, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo has said.

Aaron Snipe, deputy chief of mission at the embassy, will represent the United States at the annual ceremony in Hiroshima on Thursday and in Nagasaki on Sunday, according to the announcement made Tuesday.

It will be the first time for a U.S. ambassador to miss either the Aug. 6 Hiroshima ceremony or the Aug. 9 Nagasaki ceremony since Rahm Emanuel missed the event in Nagasaki in 2024.

Glass said in the statement that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are “not only inspiring symbols of peace and hope for the world but also a reminder that the U.S.-Japan partnership can never rest in its mission to preserve peace and protect freedom across the Indo-Pacific region.”

But the ambassador did not provide a reason for his absence. Glass attended both ceremonies in August 2025, about four months after he assumed the Tokyo post.

Hiroshima was flattened by a U.S. atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing days of World War II. Nagasaki followed the same fate three days later.