Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2021 October 6 - 12 [PEACE]

Hiroshima Hibakusha living in Canada sends letter to new Prime Minister, calling for Japan's participation in N-weapons ban treaty

A Hiroshima atomic-bomb survivor currently living in Canada, Setsuko Thurlow, on October 4 sent Japan's new Prime Minister Kishida Fumio a letter calling for Japan's participation in the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The letter asks PM Kishida to act on his assertion, "An effort to make the world nuclear-weapons free is my lifework."

Thurlow in the letter said, "The UN treaty banning nuclear weapons states that nuclear weapons are inhumane and thus unacceptable to be used under any circumstance. However, A-bombed Japan continues turning its back on this treaty. Can such an act be tolerated? Japan's participation in the treaty will have a positive ripple effect on the entire world, possibly even to move nuclear-weapons states to take action."

The letter asks Kishida as prime minister to place priority on the elimination of nuclear weapons and commit to signing and ratifying the treaty. She called on the new Japanese government to at least take part as an "observer" in the TPNW Conference of State Parties to be held in Vienna, Austria, next spring.