Nonproliferation meeting working on concrete cuts

HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) An international panel on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament opened a meeting Sunday in Hiroshima, the world's first city to suffer an atomic bombing, seeking ways to bring about a world without nuclear weapons.

Curbing nuclear arms: Former Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi (second from left) cochairs a meeting of the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament on Sunday in Hiroshima. KYODO PHOTO

During the three-day conference, the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament is expected to discuss concrete measures for reducing the number of nuclear weapons and restricting their use.

The commission is cochaired by former Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans.

"We had a very productive discussion," Kawaguchi said of the opening day.

She said discussions on the cruelty and inhumanity of nuclear weapons, based on what atomic bomb survivors experienced in August 1945, were among the highlights of the session. She added some of the commission's members proposed emphasizing suffering resulting from nuclear weapons in its final report.

Commission members met with atomic bomb survivors at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Museum when they toured Peace Memorial Park and other venues in the city, Kawaguchi said, adding they were deeply moved by the stories they heard.

Compiling a final report prior to the next Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May "is the key effort we have to make in the next three days," Evans said earlier in the day.

In a draft report titled "Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers," the panel wants to set an ambitious target of reducing existing nuclear warheads from more than 20,000 now to 1,000 or fewer and to make every nuclear state commit to the no-first-use doctrine by 2025. The initial target for adopting the doctrine was 2010 in an earlier draft.

The doctrine is a pledge by a country not to use nuclear weapons unless it or its allies come under nuclear attack.

It plans to unveil a final report in early January on a road map to the ultimate goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, which was proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama in April in Prague.

Survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 and their supporters are asking the commission to stipulate in the report a clear deadline for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

They also want the report to call for early commencement of negotiations to conclude a Nuclear Weapons Convention to ban such arms.

"We want the complete elimination of nuclear arms to be realized while we are still alive," a member of a survivors' support group said during a meeting with the commission on Saturday.

The commission held its first meeting in Sydney last October. The Hiroshima meeting is the fourth session.

The panel was established at the initiative of Australia and Japan.