Kishida Vows to Work for Nuclear-Free World

Tokyo, Dec. 9 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida vowed Thursday to work for realizing a world without nuclear arms. "We must rebuild the relationship of trust between nuclear weapons states and nonnuclear weapons states so that we can create a nuclear-free world," Kishida said in an online nuclear disarmament conference among government officials and experts from a number of countries. Kishida also showed plans to send Minoru Terada, special adviser to the prime minister, to countries concerned for the success of a review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, slated for next month. The virtual conference was held by Japan's Foreign Ministry to follow up on meetings of the Group of Eminent Persons for Substantive Advancement of Nuclear Disarmament, which was launched by Kishida in 2017 when he was foreign minister. "Moves to increase nuclear capabilities in an opaque manner have been seen around our country," Kishida said, apparently with China and Russia in mind. "I think that increasing transparency is the first step toward reducing nuclear weapons," he added. END