Japan not to join talks on nuclear arms ban treaty

March 28, 2017

NEW YORK- Japan will not take part in negotiations on concluding a treaty to ban nuclear arms, Nobushige Takamizawa, its ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, said Monday. Takamizawa showed Tokyo’s policy in a speech he delivered during the talks that started the same day at the UN headquarters in New York.

“Efforts to make such a treaty without the involvement of nuclear-weapon states will only deepen the schism and division not only between nuclear-weapon states and nonnuclear-weapon states, but also among nonnuclear-weapon states, which will further divide the international community,” he said.

“Therefore, our common goal will be pushed away, a goal of reaching a world free of nuclear weapons,” he said.

“Given the present circumstances, we must say that it would be difficult for Japan to participate in this conference in a constructive manner and in good faith,” Takamizawa said.

Japan relies on the US nuclear umbrella while continuing to call for the abolition of nuclear arms as the only country in the world attacked with such weapons.

In the negotiations, representatives from Australia, Costa Rica and other countries highlighted the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons and underlined the need for concluding a legally binding nuclear ban treaty.

By contrast, all five nuclear-weapon states--Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States--and most of US allies boycotted the day’s meeting.

On the sidelines of the meeting, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, accompanied by ambassadors from some 20 other countries, read out a statement showing their opposition to the envisaged nuclear ban treaty. No Japanese official was present at the scene.

In his speech, Japan’s Takamizawa said, “Even if such a ban treaty is agreed upon, we don’t think that it would lead to the solution of real security issues, such as the threat by North Korea.”

The negotiations have not been formulated to pursue nuclear disarmament measures that will actually lead to the elimination of nuclear weapons, in cooperation with the nuclear-weapon states, he added.

The day’s meeting was joined by Toshiki Fujimori, 72, assistant secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, or Nihon Hidankyo, as a representative of hibakusha atomic bomb survivors.

In talks with reporters, Fujimori said he cannot agree at all with the Japanese government’s position that it is difficult for the country to join the negotiations. “It’s very regrettable,” he said.

In a speech at the meeting, Fujimori said, “Nobody, in any country, deserves seeing the same hell on earth again,” referring to the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both western Japan, on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, in the closing days of World War II.

When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Fujimori, then one year and four months old, was at a location some 2.3 kilometers from the hypocenter.

The blast from the bomb severely injured Fujimori, leaving him on the verge of death.

“Yet, I survived. It is a miracle,” Fujimori said. “I am here at the UN, asking for an abolition of nuclear weapons,” he said, stressing, “I am convinced that this is a mission I am given as a survivor of the atomic bomb.”

Fujimori said: “We have called for ‘No More Hibakusha’ within Japan and abroad. The treaty you will be negotiating today must reflect this call of hibakusha in express terms so that the world makes remarkable progress toward nuclear weapons abolition.” Jiji Press