Tokyo, Nov. 13 (Jiji Press)–Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese atomic bomb survivor organization, and others have pledged to launch a campaign to increase the number of signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. At a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday ahead of the treaty’s first review conference, which will begin at U.N. headquarters in New York on Nov. 30, they called for “broadening the movement and increasing the number of countries joining the treaty.” Nihon Hidankyo, formally known as the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, will send three atomic bomb survivors, including its secretary-general, Jiro Hamasumi, 80, to the review conference. Hamasumi is expected to speak at the event. Other survivors will share their experiences at a university in the United States. Other hibakusha from the atomic-bombed Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as young members of nongovernmental organizations, will also travel to the United States for the review conference. “I want to convey what nuclear weapons have done to human beings,” Hamasumi said at the press conference. “We must increase the number of countries participating in the treaty.” Expressing his strong concern over the government’s discussions about reviewing Japan’s three nonnuclear principles of not possessing nuclear weapons, not producing them and not allowing them in the country, Hamasumi said that “Japan is at a major crossroads.” He added, “We want to work with civil society to press the government to join the treaty.” “The nuclear threat is growing globally,” Akira Kawasaki, 57, a member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, said, adding, “This will be an opportunity to use the power of the treaty to put a stop to the threat and build momentum toward abolition.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
