PM noncommittal over nuke pact in meeting with Nobel-winning Hidankyo

NIHON Hidankyo, the Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group that won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, urged the government on Wednesday to participate as an observer at a convention of signatories to a UN nuclear weapons ban treaty, but said Prime Minis-
ter Shigeru Ishiba remained noncommittal during a meeting in Tokyo.
The group’s co-chair Terumi Tanaka said the roughly 30-minute sit-down with the prime minister, held to congratulate the group on the prize, “did not yield results” on the issue. Another attendee, Toshiyuki Mimaki, described Ishiba’s reticence as “regrettable”.
Japan’s top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said the government will examine how to take a “realistic and practical” approach in response to the group’s call for Japan, the only country to have experienced nuclear attacks, to attend the gathering of signatories to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in March in New York.
Komeito party chief Tetsuo Saito, who was also at the meeting, quoted Ishiba as only saying at the meeting he is aware that “there is a view” that Japan should participate.
“It was an occasion rather for the prime minister to explain his views on defense and security, and we did not have time to respond. We want (the government) to set up another meeting,” Tanaka told reporters.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of World War II. — Kyodo

Source: The Global New Light of Myanmar