Nuke panel's plans not quick enough: hibakusha, NGOs

HIROSHIMA — Nuclear arms reduction plans crafted this week by an international panel in Hiroshima will take too long to bring about a world free of such weapons, atomic bomb survivors and antinuclear nongovernmental organizations said.

Progress report: Former Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and Australian counterpart Gareth Evans hold a news conference Tuesday after wrapping up a nuclear nonproliferation meeting in Hiroshima. KYODO PHOTO

The International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament agreed on the action plans after a three-day meeting in Hiroshima to discuss recommendations to world leaders on concrete steps for nuclear arms reduction.

A report compiled by the commission contains a three-phase action agenda for the short, medium and long terms covering the periods to 2012, 2025 and beyond to reduce nuclear weapons in the world to zero.

Kazuo Okoshi, 69, of the Hiroshima Council of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, said, "Hiroshima Mayor (Tadatoshi) Akiba and the Mayors for Peace set the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons by 2020, while the ICNND called for reducing the number of nuclear arms only to a certain level by 2025.

"We, the survivors, would like to see the goal (of a nuclear-free world) while we are alive," he said.

"It is not good to lag behind the current momentum for nuclear abolition," Okoshi said, referring to hopes fueled following the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama, who outlined a vision for a world without nuclear weapons in a speech in April.

In Hiroshima, commission members agreed on the need to drastically reduce the number of nuclear warheads in the world from more than 20,000 at present to an unspecified level. The level is presumed to be higher than the initial target of 1,000 or fewer stipulated in an earlier draft report by the commission.

Behind the ICNND's change of heart was strong opposition from nuclear-armed states to reducing their arsenals at the same rate as Russia and the United States, according to sources close to the commission. Such states insisted their stockpiles are already kept at minimum levels.

Another possible stumbling block for ambitious reductions brought up in the meeting was the physical capability for dismantling nuclear warheads, Yoriko Kawaguchi, cochairwoman of the commission, told reporters after the conference.

She was apparently referring to a lack of dismantling facilities for nuclear arms, as only one plant in the United States and two in Russia are currently believed to exist.

"As for nuclear warheads which we are not able to dismantle, we will make sure that their nuclear fissile materials will not be reused by locking them up in safely guarded environments," Kawaguchi said.

Philip White, international liaison officer of Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, said limiting the parameters for nuclear weapons use should be the priority over the target number for existing warheads, because this could influence the outcome of the new U.S. nuclear posture review that is scheduled to be released by the end of this year.

The panel reached a consensus to urge every nuclear state to commit to a no-first-strike policy and a pledge not to use nukes unless they or their allies come under nuclear attack, by 2025. But White said the policy must be adopted sooner as the first step toward total abolition of nuclear arms.

"I have an impression that the ICNND asks opinions of conservatives too much whose thinking was caught up with that of some 10 years ago," White said.