Please visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki

April 8, 2014

Foreign minister pushing leaders of nuclear powers to visit Hiroshima, Nagasaki

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201404080049

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida is pressing world leaders to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki so they can get a better understanding of the devastation wrought by atomic bombs.

“It is important for political leaders to see the reality of what happens when atomic bombs are unleashed,” Kishida said in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun at the ministry in Tokyo on April 7.

He made the remark in the context of a foreign ministers’ meeting of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI) to be held in Hiroshima from April 11 by 12 non-nuclear countries.

Kishida, who is scheduled to chair the meeting, added that the NPDI plans to incorporate the request into a joint declaration to be issued at the meeting. It will be the first time for the group to issue such a message.

In the 68 years since the atomic bombs were dropped, no leaders of nuclear powers have ever visited Hiroshima or Nagasaki. This is something the NPDI hopes to change.

It will be the first time for Japan to host the NPDI foreign ministers’ meeting.

As for holding the gathering in Hiroshima, Kishida, who is from the city, said, “It is very important in a sense that the meeting will heighten the international momentum toward the establishment of a nuclear-free world.”

He added: “Nuclear disarmament must be discussed not only by the United States and Russia but also by all of the nuclear powers from various perspectives. We (the NPDI) want to make the real conditions of the disarmament more transparent and issue a message in the field of nuclear nonproliferation as well.”

With regard to the review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, known as NPT, which is scheduled to be held in New York in spring 2015, Kishida said that the NPDI plans to get more involved.

“We want to discuss ways to show the inhumanity of nuclear weapons to all generations and all countries (at the NPDI foreign ministers’ meeting),” Kishida said.

Of the 12 countries of the NPDI, seven are protected by the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.” Of them, six countries, except for Japan, have not yet agreed to the “joint statement on the inhuman nature and non-use of nuclear weapons,” which was proposed in the United Nations in October 2013.

“We (Japan) want to become a catalyst to solidify countries of various standpoints and unite their opinions,” Kishida said.

The 12 countries of NPDI are Japan, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Nigeria, Turkey, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates. They held their first foreign ministers’ meeting in New York in September 2010.

The group has worked out documents that request NPT member countries to steadily implement action programs toward nuclear disarmament, and has submitted them to the preparation committee of the NPT review conference.

(This article was written by Gen Okamoto and Hajimu Takeda.)