Gensuikyo urges U.S. president and U.N. to devote efforts to nuclear weapons elimination

The Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) has sent letters to U.S. President George W. Bush, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the U.N. Security Council president calling on them to work for nuclear weapons to be eliminated.

The letters, dated March 18, were signed by Japan Gensuikyo Secretary General Takakusagi Hiroshi, Hiroshima Gensuikyo Secretary Matsumoto Shin'ichi, and Nagasaki Gensuikyo Secretary Katayama Akiyoshi.

Referring to the recent revelation that the United States has plans for the use of nuclear weapons against what it calls an "axis of evil," the letter to the U.S. president stated that the United States has strengthened its inclination to use nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, and increased the danger of nuclear proliferation.

Gensuikyo urged the U.S. government to withdraw all its remarks in favor of the use of nuclear weapons, cancel all programs on the use, development, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons, and implement the "total elimination of nuclear weapons" without delay, which the United States had agreed to do at the NPT Review Conference in May 2002 .

In the letter to Ole Peter Kolby, chairperson of the Security Council of the United Nations and Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary general, Gensuikyo requested that they press the U.S. government to carry out the task of elimination of nuclear weapons. (end)