The first meeting of parties to a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons in Vienna will be postponed from its March schedule to possibly summer due to travel restrictions amid the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, an Austrian government official said Tuesday.
It will be the second such delay for the meeting of the signatory states to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The gathering was initially slated for January but was pushed back to spring.
Alexander Kmentt, director of the department for disarmament issues at the Austrian Foreign Ministry, also told Kyodo News that an international conference focusing on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons will also be postponed.
Austria was planning for the conference to take place prior to the meeting of the parties to the treaty, scheduled between March 22 and 24.
Kmentt tweeted that the decision to postpone the meeting was made due to the impact on global travel, underscoring the importance of "broad" and "inclusive participation."
The treaty is the first international pact outlawing the development, testing, possession and use of nuclear weapons. It came into effect in January last year with the support of many non-nuclear states.
But nuclear-weapon states, such as the United States, are not part of it, while Japan has not signed the pact due to its security alliance with the United States, which offers the shelter of its nuclear umbrella.
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