Nagasaki Mayor to Seek to Put Nuke Ban Treaty into Force

July 30, 2018

Nagasaki- Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue said Monday he will call for international efforts to put a nuclear weapons ban treaty into force at an early date, during an annual peace ceremony set for Aug. 9.

Speaking at a press conference, Taue said he will also urge the Japanese government to sign and ratify the treaty adopted at the United Nations last year.

Taue unveiled the plans when he released an outline of this year's peace declaration to be read at the ceremony to mark the 73rd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of his southwestern Japan city.

The declaration will highlight the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and the devastating effects of radiation exposure, while calling on nuclear powers to build a security framework that does not rely on nuclear arms, according to the outline.

The declaration will also call on the Japanese government to make efforts to create a Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone, in line with moves toward denuclearizing North Korea.

It will also highlight a need to hand down the pacifist principles of the Japanese constitution to future generations.

"We'll remind nuclear powers and countries under their nuclear umbrellas that the abolition of nuclear weapons is the ultimate goal for the world," Taue said. "We'll pursue their responsibility to achieve" this goal, he added.

Nagasaki suffered the atomic attack on Aug. 9, 1945, in the closing days of World War II, three days after the western Japan city of Hiroshima was flattened by a separate U.S. atomic bomb. Jiji Press