Nuke Ban Treaty Not Mentioned Again in Japan-Drafted Resolution

October 19, 2018

New York- The Japanese government has submitted a draft resolution calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons to the First Committee of the U.N. General Assembly.

But the Japanese-sponsored draft again does not mention the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted at the United Nations in July 2017.

The draft resolution, submitted on Wednesday, is expected to be passed by the committee on disarmament in early November.

Japan has been submitting a draft resolution seeking nuclear abolition every year since 1994.

The latest version, like the 2017 draft, notes in its preamble that there are various approaches toward the realization of a world free of nuclear weapons, apparently with the confrontation between nuclear and nonnuclear states over the treaty in mind.

It also welcomes U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' visit in August this year to the southwestern Japan city of Nagasaki, which was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb on Aug. 9, 1945, in the closing days of World War II. During the visit, Guterres attended an annual Aug. 9 ceremony in the city for remembering victims of the nuclear attack and praying for lasting world peace, becoming the first U.N. chief to do that.

The draft resolution also urges North Korea to put into action steps it agreed at occasions such as a historic summit with the United States in June this year. Jiji Press