Japanese A-bomb survivors disappointed by NPT talks' document+

TOKYO, May 29 Kyodo -
People in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two Japanese cities attacked with atomic
bombs by the United States during World War II, expressed disappointment
Saturday at the content of a final document adopted at the latest nuclear
nonproliferation conference, saying the text has been watered down due to
nuclear powers' resistance to taking significant disarmament steps.
Sakue Shimohira, 75, who survived the bombing of Nagasaki, said, ''I regret
that the discussions lost (initial) momentum, but I won't allow myself to be
discouraged by this.''
Shimohira, who made a speech during the just-ended U.N. conference reviewing
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in New York, said, ''I hope young people
will act to make Nagasaki the last place to have been attacked by nuclear
arms.'' The bombing of Nagasaki took place Aug. 9, 1945, three days after
Hiroshima was hit.
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said it was regrettable that the NPT review
conference, which ended Friday after adopting the final document, failed to
incorporate specific timelines for starting nuclear disarmament negotiations in
the text.
''Still, it was significant that all member states, including the nuclear
powers, agreed to taking concrete measures toward the abolition of nuclear
weapons,'' the mayor said.
A number of the Japanese survivors went to New York to talk about their
experiences and call for a world without nuclear arms, but they have been
disappointed to receive almost no coverage of their activities in U.S. media.
Kazushi Kaneko, 84, a survivor from Hiroshima, said it was also regrettable
that neither Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama nor Foreign Minister
Katsuya Okada took part in the conference.
''Japan, as the only country that has been bombed with nuclear weapons, should
have led discussions at the conference to seek their abolition,'' he said.
The survivors said that the adoption of the final document was in itself a
positive step, given that the previous conference in 2005 failed to adopt one.
But experts and peace movement campaigners were critical of the twice-a-decade
discussions.
Motofumi Asai, head of the Hiroshima Peace Institute of Hiroshima City
University, said the fact that many proposals involving specific timelines were
dismissed at final-stage negotiations ''made it clear how strongly the
nuclear-weapons states stick to their weapons.''
Akira Kawasaki, joint representative of the Peace Boat nongovernmental group,
said he was disappointed by how little progress had been made in 10 years.
''The limitations of the conference, a negotiation between nuclear-weapons
states and non-nuclear-weapons states, have been revealed,'' he said.
''We the citizens need to create a new framework for promoting the nuclear
disarmament movement in cooperation with countries that are positive about
formulating a treaty to ban nuclear arms,'' he said.
==Kyodo
2010-05-29 23:33:36