Abe to Use Obama Hiroshima Visit to Push Nuclear Disarmament

Tokyo, May 23 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes to take the opportunity of U.S. President Barack Obama's historic visit to Hiroshima on Friday to highlight the leading role Japan plays in international efforts for nuclear disarmament, informed sources said. Abe also aims to call attention to the cooperative relations between the only country in the world that has ever used an atomic bomb in war and the only country that has suffered an atomic bombing, with the aim of breaking the stalemate of global moves for nuclear disarmament. "I hope to do all I can with the president to realize a world without nuclear weapons," Abe told reporters on May 10, when the Japanese and U.S. government announced the trip to Hiroshima by Obama. Obama is set to visit Hiroshima in western Japan after attending the two-day Group of Seven summit in Mie Prefecture, central Japan, from Thursday. The visit will make Obama the first sitting American president to set foot in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki in southwestern Japan, which were each attacked with a U.S. nuclear weapon in August 1945 in the closing days of World War II. During Obama's visit to Hiroshima, Abe is considering issuing a message to declare the resolve of Japan and the United States to pursue the abolition of nuclear weapons, the sources said. In addition, arrangements are being made for the joint statement to be adopted by the G-7 leaders to include wording that calls on both nuclear weapons states and those without such arms to work together for practical action toward nuclear disarmament, according to the sources. The G-7 foreign ministers, in their Hiroshima Declaration on Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation, adopted when they met in Hiroshima in April, said, "The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced immense devastation and human suffering as a consequence of the atomic bombings." The visit to Hiroshima by Obama, coming soon after the adoption of the Hiroshima Declaration, will provide "a springboard for restoring the momentum of nuclear disarmament that had recently been waning," said Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida. Abe apparently hopes that the G-7 summit and Obama's Hiroshima visit will be regarded as diplomatic achievements for him if both are successful, giving a boost to his Liberal Democratic Party's campaign for the triennial election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, this summer. But achieving real progress in nuclear disarmament efforts is not an easy task, with a confrontation deepening between nuclear-capable states and nonnuclear nations. A review conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in May last year broke down and ended without adopting a final statement. Frustrated by the stagnation in the nuclear disarmament process, nonnuclear nations are seeking a treaty to ban nuclear weapons on the grounds of the inhumanity of such arms. At the same time, Japan depends on the U.S. nuclear umbrella as North Korea continues its nuclear development programs and China beefs up its nuclear force. Japan stood against the proposed introduction of a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The absence of a reference to the inhumanity of nuclear weapons in the G-7 Hiroshima Declaration is believed to reflect Japan's consideration for the United States. In view of the reality of its contradicting positions on nuclear disarmament, "Japan is likely to have difficulty issuing a convincing message," said a Japanese government official. END