Dinner Meeting Hosted by Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, for Participants in Asia Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament
November 9, 2011
Japanese
On Wednesday, November 9, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:40 p.m., Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, hosted a dinner meeting for participants in the inaugural meeting of Asia Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, including Mr. Gareth Evans, the former Foreign Minister of Australia, at Iikura Guesthouse. An overview of the exchange of views at the meeting is as follows.
1. As an initial remark, Foreign Minister Gemba offered his congratulations on the APLN inauguration as a follow-up to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), a Japan-Australia joint initiative. Foreign Minister Gemba stated that sending out actively messages from Asia of information on the importance of disarmament and practical nuclear disarmament measures will contribute greatly to the peace and stability of the international community. He also expressed his hope that the APLN will produce recommendations that will lead to substantive results in disarmament and non-proliferation.
2. In response, the former Foreign Minister Evans referred to his own motivation by explaining that he has been following the nuclear disarmament path after being unable to forget the things he saw at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum as a student. The former Foreign Minister Evans also said that he was delighted at the fact that APLN members, sharing an enthusiasm for nuclear disarmament, were able to meet under the same roof, and that the long-planned Tokyo meeting had been achieved. He also stated that it was his hope this inaugural meeting will discuss and propose on Japan's role in nuclear disarmament.
Members who attended in the dinner meeting (Attachment)
Reference 1 The background to the establishment of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament
In May 2011, the launch of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network (APLN) for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament was announced as a follow-up to the ICNND (Co-Chairs: Ms. Yoriko Kawaguchi and Mr. Gareth Evans), a Japan-Australia joint initiative on nonproliferation and disarmament. The network is made up of 30 former politicians who were diplomatic and defense leaders from 13 Asia-Pacific region countries, among them China, India and Pakistan, which are countries possessing nuclear weapons. Those involved with the APLN are in Japan from November 10-12 to hold a meeting for its inaugural meeting.
Reference 2 The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND)
(1) The ICNND was proposed by then Prime Minister of Australia Mr. Kevin Rudd when he visited Japan in June 2008. On July 9, 2008 then Prime Minister of Japan Mr. Yasuo Fukuda and then Prime Minister Rudd agreed to set up the ICNND as a Japan-Australia joint initiative, and Ms. Yoriko Kawaguchi, the former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, and Mr. Gareth Evans, the former Foreign Minister of Australia, were appointed as Commission Co-Chairs.
(2) The Commission, which comprised of 15 commissioners including both Co-Chairs, nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It presented a report to the Japan-Australia Prime Ministers' Meeting in December 2009 that included concrete recommendations for contributing to the success of the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The report was also submitted to the Review Conference as a working paper. The Commission held four meetings up to the presentation of its report. (The first in Sydney in October 2008, the second in Washington DC in February 2009, the third in Moscow in June 2009 and the fourth in Hiroshima in October 2009). Additionally, regional meetings were held in Latin America (Santiago), Northeast Asia (Beijing), the Middle East (Cairo), and South Asia (New Delhi). In July 2010 a fifth meeting (the final meeting) took place in Vienna, and the Commission adopted the Vienna Communiqué, which recommended the establishment of a Global Centre toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.
* The text above is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.