By KEISHI NISHIMURA/ Staff Writer
September 22, 2022 at 16:34 JST
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at the U.N. General Assembly session on Sept. 20. (Sayuri Ide)
NEW YORK--Seeking to have the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) take effect as soon as possible, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sept. 21 attended the first leaders’ meeting of like-minded nations.
While foreign ministers of the so-called CTBT Friends group have met in the past, there has never been a meeting of the six nations' leaders who comprise the group.
“Japan will continue to work to have the CTBT take effect in the near future and to strengthen the verification process,” Kishida said at the meeting held here.
Kishida touched upon the fact that next year’s Group of Seven summit will be held in Hiroshima in May.
“Through various discussions, we want to push forward in a realistic and practical manner to bring about a world without nuclear weapons,” he said.
The United Nations approved the CTBT in 1996. So far, 174 nations have ratified it, but 44 nations with the capability of developing nuclear weapons must ratify it for the treaty to take effect. Eight such nations, including the United States, China and North Korea, have not yet ratified the CTBT.
Japan and Australia established CTBT Friends in 2002 to augment the work of the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which meets once every two years.
The CTBT Friends holds its meeting in years when the conference is not held. The other members are the Netherlands, Canada, Finland and Germany.
Kishida attended the foreign ministers’ meetings of CTBT Friends in 2014 and 2016.
In becoming the first Japanese leader to address the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in August, Kishida proposed holding a leaders’ meeting of CTBT Friends.
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