Kawasaki shows expectations for Nobel ceremony

December 7, 2017

Tokyo- Akira Kawasaki, a member of the international steering committee of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, has shown expectations for a coming award ceremony for the prestigious prize.

At a press conference in Tokyo on Wednesday, Kawasaki, 49, said he hopes that the ceremony, to be held in Oslo on Sunday, will be the "kickoff" of moves to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Words from hibakusha, or people who survived the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, highlighted the inhumanity of nuclear arms and led to the adoption in July of a U.N. treaty to ban nuclear weapons. A challenge is how to move forward with the treaty, he said.

Nuclear weapons states and nuclear umbrella states, including Japan, the only nation attacked with nuclear arms, did not join the negotiations on the treaty.

"I want all people in Japan to discuss whether it is really all right for Japan to stay out of the treaty," Kawasaki said.

Noting that this year's Nobel Peace Prize was won by "ordinary" citizen activists, he said, "I want everyone to think that the world will change if ordinary citizens act."

Kawasaki, co-chair of Peace Boat, a member of ICAN, a coalition of nongovernmental organizations, is set to attend the Nobel award ceremony and a related banquet, and hold a meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Kawasaki said that ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn will visit Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokyo next month to deliver speeches and carry out other activities.

Hiroshima, western Japan, was devastated by a US atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing days of World War II. Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, suffered the same fate three days later. Jiji Press