Hidankyo Regrets as Nuke Nonproliferation Talks Fail

Tokyo, May 23 (Jiji Press)–A senior official of Nihon Hidankyo, or the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, on Saturday voiced his disappointment as an international nuclear nonproliferation conference broke down again. It was “simply regrettable” that the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, ended in New York on Friday without an outcome document after four weeks of discussions, Nihon Hidankyo Secretary-General Jiro Hamasumi said at an online press conference. The NPT review conference failed to adopt a final document for the third consecutive meeting due chiefly to differences over Iran’s nuclear development program. Representing the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize-winning group, the 80-year-old traveled to the United States to deliver a speech during the latest meeting that kicked off on April 27. He is a hibakusha survivor of a U.S. atomic bombing of the western Japan city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. The southwestern Japan city of Nagasaki was devastated by another atomic bomb dropped by the United States just three days later. “We’ll work on telling people both in and outside Japan that nuclear weapons and humans cannot coexist,” he said, adding, “We must change nuclear security.” Touching on Russia and Belarus holding a joint drill on nuclear weapons operations during the review conference period, Hideo Asano, 29, who served as Hamasumi’s interpreter during his U.S. trip, said, “The threat of nuclear arms is increasing even at this moment.” “I hope that the failure to reach an agreement would serve as an opportunity for countries to share a sense of crisis over how bad the situation is,” Asano said. Akira Kawasaki, 57, a member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, said, “We need to step up our efforts to call on countries to pursue nuclear disarmament.” Meanwhile, hibakusha in Hiroshima and Nagasaki also voiced their disappointment and anger over the latest NPT meeting. Toshiyuki Mimaki, 84, who heads a Hiroshima hibakusha group, said, “It’s as if we’ve gotten lost in a dark tunnel, with the exit nowhere in sight.” “Countries saying whatever they want and not willing to compromise may result in a war,” he warned, calling on Japan, as the only atomic-bombed country in history, to take strong leadership on the matter. Masao Tomonaga, an 82-year-old doctor who was exposed to the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, attended related events held in New York during the review conference period. “I’m worried that the NPT framework may fall apart,” he said. Speaking to reporters, Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki expressed “massive disappointment” at the outcome of the just-ended meeting. The meeting breaking down “highlighted again the grave situation of division and conflict,” he said. Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui in a statement said that hibakusha’s hopes for nuclear disarmament were “abandoned for the third time” amid disagreements within the international community. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]