By Miya Tanaka,
Calls for efforts to free the world from the threat of nuclear weapons marked the start of a major four-week disarmament conference at the U.N. headquarters on Monday, reflecting heightened concerns over the risk of a nuclear conflict amid Russia's war on Ukraine.
"Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, which Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also attended as the first Japanese leader to do so.
Kishida, representing the only country to have suffered atomic bombings in war, sought the important "shared recognition" toward continuing the "record of non-use of nuclear weapons" so that no other country will experience what Japan has gone through.
Although Russia's nuclear saber-rattling amid its aggression against Ukraine has stirred concern that yet another nuclear catastrophe is "a real possibility," Kishida said he will not give up striving for a world without the extremely destructive weapons and called for the need to advance "realistic measures" toward that end.
It is not common for heads of government to address the conference, which is usually held every five years. However, Kishida's roots in the western Japan city of Hiroshima, which was devastated by a U.S. atomic bombing in World War II, motivated him to show his commitment to pursuing nuclear disarmament.
Guterres said in his speech that the state parties to the NPT "urgently need to reinforce and reaffirm" a decades-old norm against the use of nuclear weapons, adding that it means finding "practical measures that will reduce the risk of nuclear war and put us back on the path to disarmament."
Still, the deepening rift between nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear states on the path to disarmament and increasing tensions among nuclear powers leave it unclear whether the creation of a consensus document to further the NPT's nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation goals is within reach at the ongoing conference.
The meeting is being held for the first time since a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons entered into force in January last year, reflecting the buildup of frustration among the have-nots over the continuing lack of progress in nuclear arms reduction.
The U.S. government has said it does not believe the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is an effective step that can lead to nuclear disarmament, with no nuclear powers currently supporting it. Japan, which relies on U.S. nuclear deterrence for protection, has also not joined the nuclear ban treaty.
During the conference, many countries acknowledged the importance of maintaining and strengthening the NPT, which went into force in 1970 and represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon states.
Under the treaty, the five nations officially recognized as possessing nuclear weapons -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- pledge to work toward disarmament in exchange for promises from non-nuclear states not to acquire nuclear weapons.
U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement issued just before the start of the conference that his administration is "ready to expeditiously" negotiate with Russia a new arms control framework to replace an existing nuclear arms deal that is set to expire in 2026.
But he added that "negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith," making it unclear if such talks will gain traction when the relationship between the two countries remains at an increasingly low ebb over the Ukraine crisis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a letter to participants of the NPT review conference he believes "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," reiterating a pledge Moscow made with the four other nuclear powers just weeks before the Ukraine invasion began in February.
During the meeting, countries also voiced other concerns that need to be addressed, including China's rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal. Biden, in the statement, urged Beijing to engage in talks that would reduce "the risk of miscalculation and address destabilizing military dynamics."
North Korea has also continued to act provocatively, with the secretive country believed to be preparing to conduct its seventh nuclear test after a hiatus that has lasted years.
North Korea declared its withdrawal from the NPT in 2003. India, Pakistan and Israel, considered de facto nuclear-weapon states, remain outside the NPT.
The last time an NPT review conference adopted a final document was in 2010. At the previous meeting in 2015, negotiators failed to narrow differences over a proposal to make the Middle East a nuclear weapons-free zone.
The latest round of the meeting was due to take place in 2020 but was repeatedly postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will continue through Aug. 26 in New York.
Nuclear weapons have been used twice in warfare -- the U.S. bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Still, some 13,000 nuclear warheads, most of them held by the United States and Russia, remain in existence, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Guterres warned on Monday that humanity is "in danger of forgetting the lessons" learned from the horrifying nuclear attacks on Japan nearly 77 years ago and announced that he will visit Hiroshima for the Aug. 6 anniversary of the bombing.
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