Japanese NGOs Meet with the “Eminent Persons Group for Substantial Progress of Nuclear Disarmament”

The first meeting of the “Eminent Persons Group for Substantial Progress of Nuclear Disarmament” was held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in Hiroshima from November 27 to 28. The meeting brought together 16 experts from Japan and abroad including nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states to examine potential ways in which Japan can serve as a bridge among nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon

states. The group is to prepare recommendations at the meeting and submit them to the 2020 NPT Preparatory Committee in 2018. On the morning of November 28, the group had a discussion with Japanese NGOs. Following three powerful presentations from NGOs, they had active exchanges of views on the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and nuclear deterrence. Kimiaki Kawai, Director of the Soka Gakkai Peace Committee attended and made a statement in which he expected the group to put forward a new vision of security, one that was easily understood, robust, and appealing, based on the universal human desire to protect the things we treasure. He further stressed the necessity to foster a shared awareness that nuclear weapons in any hands are dangerous and wrong as a means of protecting the things and the people we treasure, and on this basis, to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons as a shared global undertaking by all of humankind. [if !supportLineBreakNewLine] [endif]