Japan Press Weekly

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2017 March 22 - 28 [PEACE]

Iwate Pref. Assembly urges Abe gov’t to join negotiations on NWC

The Iwate Prefectural Assembly on March 22 approved a proposal urging the Abe government to join the UN conference to negotiate an international treaty to ban all nuclear weapons and work for such a treaty to be concluded early. This is the first proposal to that effect adopted at the prefectural level.

The statement was passed by majority vote, including yes votes of three Japanese Communist Party assemblypersons. The Liberal Democratic Party, the largest group in the assembly, opposed it.

The adopted document refers to the fact that in December 2016, along with most nuclear states, the Japanese government voted against the UN resolution to convene an international conference in 2017 in order to discuss a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC). It goes on to criticize the Abe administration for “turning its back on the wish of the Japanese people, including Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors).”

In collaboration with the JCP, the prefectural chapters of the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo) and the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Hidankyo) had worked to encourage political groups in the assembly to adopt the proposal.

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The Yaizu City Assembly in Shizuoka Prefecture on March 22 unanimously approved a statement calling on the Abe government to participate in the UN conference to negotiate a NWC and make serious efforts to have the convention adopted.

This is the first time that a municipal assembly in Shizuoka endorsed a statement of this kind. Yaizu City is the home port of the Japanese tuna fishing boat, Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon #5), which was exposed to radioactive fallout from the H-bomb test explosion conducted by the U.S. in 1954 at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.

The Yaizu Gensuikyo had petitioned the city assembly to adopt the proposal with the help of JCP assemblypersons.