Kishida Unlikely to Attend NPT Review Meeting in N.Y.

Tokyo, Dec. 26 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is unlikely to attend in person a review conference on the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, starting Jan. 4 in New York, government sources said Sunday. Kishida increasingly believe that it is difficult to visit New York mainly because novel coronavirus infection cases are surging in the city, according to the sources. An NPT review conference is held every five years. The Japanese leader, who took office in early October, has pledged to work on realizing a world without nuclear weapons. In a lecture meeting Thursday, Kishida said that he will do his best for the success of the upcoming meeting, indicating his eagerness to become the first Japanese prime minister to take part in an NPT review conference. Kishida has been elected to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, from a constituency comprising parts of the western city of Hiroshima, which was flattened by the U.S. atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing days of World War II. If he decides not to attend the January meeting in person, he will consider options such as delivering a video speech from Japan during the conference, the sources said. Kishida is also exploring the possibility of visiting Washington to hold a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden. But work to arrange the visit has run into difficulties. END