Foreign ministers from a group of countries without nuclear weapons gathered Friday in Hiroshima for a two-day event to discuss nuclear arms reduction.
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his Dutch counterpart Frans Timmermans and Australian counterpart Julie Bishop participated in discussions with students, representatives from nongovernmental organizations and local government leaders to start the event.N
The ministers will be joined Saturday by representatives from the other nine member states of the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Initiative for ministerial level talks.
Kishida, who will chair Saturday’s meeting, told reporters, “We’ll discuss in detail realistic and practical means to make progress in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation” at the ministerial meeting.
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It will be the NPDI’s eighth meeting and the first to be held in Japan.
The meeting will serve as the prelude to a session of the preparatory committee for a review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of the international movement for nuclear arms reduction, to be held in New York from April 28.
But it is uncertain how effective the NPDI will be in bringing about moves to reduce nuclear arsenals as more than half of the member states, including Japan, enjoy the protection of the U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization “nuclear umbrella” deterrent.
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