February 21, 2025

Japanese Communist Party Executive Committee Chair Tamura Tomoko on February 20 criticized the Japanese government, saying, “I wonder why it keeps turning its back on the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons despite being the only country to have suffered the devastation wrought by being attacked with A-bombs.”

Tamura at a press conference held in the Diet building said that “it is unacceptable” for the government to not participate, even as an observer, in the Third Meeting of State Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) slated for March at the UN Headquarters in NYC.

Tamura said that the Meeting, which will be held on the 80th year commemoration of the A-bombings, “will be a very important forum” for discussing and communicating to the world the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, and announced that the JCP will send Kira Yoshiko, House of Councilors member, and Kasai Akira, former House of Representatives member, to New York to participate in various side events at the Meeting.

The Third Meeting will discuss support for victims of nuclear weapons use and testing, including Hibakusha, and environmental remediation in areas where nuclear weapons were used or tested, which have been discussed since the first Meeting. How to finally once and for all overcome the “nuclear deterrence theory” will also be discussed.

Tamura said, “The Meeting will demonstrate the legal effectiveness of the TPNW.”