The US ambassador to Japan skipped a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in protest at Israel not being invited, AFP reports.

Rahm Emanuel instead attended a prayer meeting at a Tokyo temple with Israeli ambassador Gilad Cohen and Britain’s Julia Longbottom, who also boycotted the Nagasaki event.

Nagasaki’s mayor, Shiro Suzuki, has insisted that Cohen’s exclusion from the annual event in the southern Japanese city was “not political”.

Instead, it was to avoid possible protests over the Gaza conflict and ensure a “smooth ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment.” But Emanuel, former chief of staff for ex-president Barack Obama, rejected this.

“I think it was a political decision, not one based on security, given the prime minister (of Japan) is in attendance,” he told reporters after the ceremony at the Buddhist temple