Takaichi Mum on Japan Attendance at Nuke Ban Treaty Meeting

Tokyo, April 9 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Thursday avoided clarifying whether Japan will participate in the November meeting of signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Meeting with Takaichi at the prime minister's office in Tokyo, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui and Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki called for Japan's participation in the conference to review the treaty as an observer. Japan has not signed the treaty.

The cities of Hiroshima, western Japan, and Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, suffered the U.S. atomic bombings in August 1945, in the closing days of World War II.

While acknowledging the treaty's significance as a major step to realize a world without nuclear weapons, Takaichi said that the government must also consider the "very severe security environment."

Regarding the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the prime minister said that Japan would seek to "serve as a bridge between nuclear states and nonnuclear states" and "find a path that both sides can accept."

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]