Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba plans to skip a convention of signatories to a U.N. nuclear weapons ban treaty to be held in New York in March, government sources said Saturday.
Ishiba believes that Japan, which relies on the nuclear deterrence provided by the United States, needs to take a realistic approach to realizing a world free of nuclear weapons, they said.
The premier has been noncommittal over participation as an observer at the gathering of signatories to the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons despite calls to attend from survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of World War II.
Japan is not a member of the international agreement, which entered into force in 2021. All countries designated by the treaty as nuclear weapon states have also stayed out.
Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group that won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, urged Ishiba to attend the convention in New York during their meeting earlier in the month, but he remained reticent about the matter.
Ishiba, who became prime minister in October, has underscored the importance of the nuclear deterrence in the face of nuclear threats from North Korea, China and Russia.
File photo shows Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (R) meeting with Terumi Tanaka, co-chair of 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner Nihon Hidankyo, at the premier’s office in Tokyo on Jan. 8, 2025. (Kyodo)
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