Yamaguchi submits urgent proposal on nuclear arms treaty to Japanese foreign minister

October 22 , 2020

Yamaguchi submitted a nuclear disarmament proposal to Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi on Oct. 21Yamaguchi (blue tie) submitted a nuclear disarmament proposal to Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi (right, center) on Oct. 21

On October 21, a Komeito delegation led by Chief Representative Natsuo Yamaguchi met with Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi to deliver an urgent proposal to the Japanese government regarding the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. With the number of states nearing the minimum of 50 ratifying countries needed for the treaty (47 have done so as of October 13) to go into effect, Yamaguchi urged Japan to assume a leadership role in establishing an international framework to address this issue and to participate in the post-ratification Conference of Parties as an Observer State.

Komeito has consistently maintained that Japan should serve as a bridge to narrow the gap separating nuclear-weapon states from non-nuclear-weapon states and to bring them to a viable agreement. Citing the “extraordinary effort” in support of the treaty by surviving victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Yamaguchi called on the Japanese government to reassess its role and reforge its stand on the permanent abolition of nuclear weapons.

Yamaguchi then referred to the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was postponed to April 2021 due to the pandemic. He said that Japan must play a key role to fill in existing divides between countries with and those without nuclear weaponry, and that the Group of Eminent Persons for Substantive Advancement of Nuclear Disarmament proposal issued earlier this year was the first of many steps toward that end.

Yamaguchi also asked the Japanese government to actively work on the United States and Russia for the two governments to extend the duration of the New START Treaty and to expand the scope and scale of disarmament.

The Komeito delegation included Masayoshi Hamada, House of Councilors member and chair of the party’s committee on nuclear weapons abolition, and representatives of the Komeito prefectural offices in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.