Association for a Non-Nuclear Government urges government to play role in promoting nuclear weapons abolition at UNGA

With the 58th United Nations General Assembly set to open in mid- September, the Association for a Non-Nuclear Government has urged the government to fulfill its responsibility to achieve the swift abolition of nuclear weapons.

On September 9, Nakajima Tokunosuke and three other representatives met with Toshimitsu Motegi, the senior vice foreign minister at the Foreign Ministry, and requested that Japan together with governments of non-aligned and New Agenda Coalition member countries vote for a resolution calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. They also called on the government to urge the nuclear weapons possessing countries to implement the promise to "eliminate their nuclear arsenals".

They said that the government should protest against the U.S. government policies of preemptive nuclear strikes and the use of nuclear weapons, and strongly urge the United States to abandon its dangerous nuclear policies.

They demanded that the government stop relying on a mythical U.S. nuclear umbrella and its supposed nuclear deterrence policy, and reject the constitutional interpretation that Japan can maintain nuclear weapons.

Motegi said, "Under the Security Treaty with the United States, we need U.S. nuclear deterrence, but as a U.S. ally we will speak for ourselves."

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The Japan Peace Committee board of directors has called for the success of the Peace Conference in November and the new international campaign to collect signatures calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The board of directors held a meeting in Tokyo from September 6-7. It discussed a draft of a short-term action program and decided to carry out movements in opposition to the planned dispatch of Japan's Self-Defense Forces to Iraq, reinforcement of the U.S. military bases in Japan, substantiation of the wartime legislation, and the adverse revision of the Constitution. They also agreed to appeal to the public for the abrogation of the Japan-U.S. military alliance. (end)