Hibakusha Groups Urge Japan to Lead Nuke Disarmament Efforts

Nagasaki, July 13 (Jiji Press)--Five groups of hibakusha atomic bomb survivors in Nagasaki Prefecture on Thursday urged the Japanese government to lead nuclear disarmament efforts after the first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons was adopted last week. The government was requested to "ratify the treaty early and spearhead efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons," the groups said in a joint statement announced at a press conference in the southwestern Japan city devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb in August 1945. "We are heartily pleased with the adoption of the pact," the statement also said. "Difficult tasks that lie ahead are how to have nuclear states and countries under nuclear umbrellas join (the treaty) and scrap all nuclear weapons. It is the Japanese government that should play the main role" in the work, the groups said. The government was urged to deliver powerful messages as the country "experienced the cruelty of nuclear arms." The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, western Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later, in the closing days of World War II. The groups criticized the government for failing to participate in negotiations on the treaty. The failure not only runs counter to global public opinion and antinuclear efforts by many countries but also betrays hibakusha and other Japanese citizens calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, the statement said. END