Editorial

Minister for Foreign Affairs Hirofumi Nakasone has indicated that Japan is planning to host an international conference on global nuclear disarmament. He called for international participation, indicating in a Tokyo address that Japan plans to hold the meeting ahead of the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

It is extremely rare for Japan to host this kind of international conference. At the same time it is significant that Japan -- the only country to have suffered the devastation of nuclear bombings and a nation that stands by three non-nuclear principles -- is coming out and taking the lead in the field of nuclear arms reduction.

In his address titled "Conditions toward Zero: 11 Benchmarks for Global Nuclear Disarmament," Nakasone highlighted the Japanese government's comprehensive policies toward nuclear disarmament. While seeking further reductions in stockpiles of nuclear warheads held by the United States and Russia, which together possess over 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, Nakasone called for other nuclear-capable countries, such as China, India and Pakistan, to enhance transparency with regard to their nuclear arsenals. He also requested that these countries freeze the development of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Nakasone expressed hope for early ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, and said Japan would work on having other countries such as China, India and Pakistan sign the treaty at an early stage. He stressed that it was necessary for India, Pakistan and Israel to join the NPT, and requested that North Korea fully implement its obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions and agreements reached at the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

Japan's forward-looking stance, which is in line with the United States' commitment to seeking "a world without nuclear weapons," as Obama declared in a speech in Prague, should be commended.

However, while there are calls to eliminate nuclear weapons, situations that threaten the nuclear nonproliferation system are becoming more serious, with Iran continuing to enrich uranium "for peaceful use" and North Korea declaring that it has started reprocessing nuclear fuel rods.

The NPT system, which forms the foundation for an international nuclear administration system, calls for countries that do not possess nuclear weapons to uphold their nonproliferation responsibilities and for nuclear powers to press ahead with nuclear disarmament. However, dissatisfaction is spreading among non-nuclear nations, who say that the efforts of nuclear powers are not sufficient. One of the reasons that the last NPT review conference in 2005 ended without making ground was that the United States, the world's largest possessor of nuclear weapons, took a hesitative stance toward nuclear disarmament under the former administration of George W. Bush.

Reflecting on this, the Obama administration has promoted a strengthened NPT as one of the pillars of its comprehensive strategy toward eliminating nuclear weapons. The international committee on nuclear disarmament that was founded with cooperation between Japan and Australia will stage its last meeting this autumn in Hiroshima under the joint chairmanship of former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans. During the meeting they plan to compile suggestions for the NPT review conference.

It is appropriate that Japan, a non-nuclear nation and a major peaceful user of nuclear power, is serving as a mediator to eliminate distrust between nuclear-capable nations and non-nuclear states and restore trust in the NPT system.