Statement by the Press Secretary/Director-General for Press and Public Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the Geneva Workshop on a Treaty to Ban the Production of Fissile Material for Nuclear Weapons or Other Nuclear Explosive Devices

May 11, 2001

Japan took the initiative in holding a Workshop on a Treaty to Ban the Production of Fissile Material for Nuclear Weapons or Other Nuclear Explosive Devices which will be held on 14 (Mon) and 15 (Tue) May in Geneva, with a view to increasing a momentum to start negotiations for such a Treaty. Japan therefore strongly hopes that the Workshop will achieve success and that, after such extensive efforts, negotiations for the Treaty start immediately. Japan is determined to continue its diplomatic efforts for immediate commencement of the negotiations for the Treaty, based upon the view that the Treaty is a concrete and realistic measure in the wake of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and is extremely significant in realizing a world free of nuclear weapons.
At the Conference on Disarmament, there have been no negotiations for a new disarmament-oriented treaty after 1996 when CTBT negotiations came to an end, underlining the stagnation of the trend for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation since the latter half of the 1990s.

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