Japan and Korean Peninsula a nuclear weapons-free zone?

April 8, 2015

Nagasaki research center proposes nuclear weapons-free zone

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201504080040

By HAJIMU TAKEDA/ Staff Writer

A leading nuclear disarmament institute has proposed that Japan and the Korean Peninsula declare themselves as nuclear weapons-free zones.

The proposal was made by the Nagasaki University Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.

“It would help Japan to exit from the United States’ nuclear umbrella and strengthen its voice for abolishing nuclear weapons,” Hiromichi Umebayashi, until recently a director of the center, told a news conference in Tokyo on April 7.

The proposal, titled “A comprehensive approach to a Northeast Asia nuclear weapons-free zone,” will be presented at a symposium to be held May 8 during the 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which starts April 27 in New York.

“North Korea’s nuclear-arms development has triggered Japan and South Korea to increase dependence on the U.S. nuclear deterrence, which hampers efforts for realizing a world without nuclear weapons,” states the proposal.

The proposal hinges on a deal between six countries: Japan, South Korea and North Korea would promise to refrain from research on or production of nuclear weapons, while the three nuclear states--the United States, China and Russia--would guarantee not to target them with nuclear weapons.

Five nuclear-free zones--which prohibit the stationing, development and use of nuclear weapons inside the designated territory--currently exist in the world, including areas in Latin America and Africa.

In an effort to promote a nuclear weapons-free world, the Nagasaki research center plans to hold a discussion forum during the NPT conference in New York, and has invited Morton Halperin, a foreign-policy expert who has served as a special assistant to U.S. President Bill Clinton, officials at the center said.