UN nuclear ban treaty panel chair hopes for Japan cooperation

March 26, 2017

New York- Elayne Whyte Gomez, chair of the upcoming UN meetings aimed at concluding a treaty to impose a legal ban on nuclear weapons, has expressed her hopes for participation and cooperation from Japan and other nations, including nuclear powers, in the disarmament process.

“Japan, all the countries of the world have a lot to contribute to this process,” Whyte said in an interview with Jiji Press in New York on Friday.

Noting that Japan is the only country in the world that has ever been attacked with nuclear weapons, Whyte said that “Japan is in a unique position” of being able to share the experience of the attack with the rest of the world.

A UN conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons is set to hold a meeting in New York for five days from Monday, chaired by Whyte, permanent representative at Costa Rica’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

Amid slow progress in the process toward nuclear disarmament, the upcoming negotiations will be “a step in the right direction of moving the agenda forward,” Whyte said. “We need to move forward especially considering the tremendous humanitarian impact” of nuclear weapons,” she said.

The government of Japan, protected by US nuclear deterrence, has not yet clarified its stance on whether the country will participate in the UN meetings.

On the outlook for the whole of the negotiations, Whyte said the conference plans to draw up a draft treaty based on opinions from participants in the March meeting and distribute its copies to UN member countries by its next session slated for June and July.

“In June session, we are going to start working on the discussion of the specific prohibition of the treaty text,” she said.

Countries in favor of a nuclear ban treaty aim to compile a draft treaty in the June-July session.

Asked whether an agreement will be reached in July, Whyte pointed out that a UN General Assembly resolution adopted in December calls on participants in the conference to make efforts to conclude the treaty “as soon as possible,” indicating the possibility of an early agreement. Jiji Press