Global Zero Summit

October 11, 2011
Japanese

The Global Zero Summit is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, October 11, and Wednesday, October 12, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library located in the Los Angeles suburb. From Japan, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Akihisa Nagashima and other Diet members will be attending the meeting.
At the meeting, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Nagashima will read out a message of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. The message expresses Japan’s resolve, as the only country in the world to have suffered nuclear devastation, to lead international disarmament and nonproliferation efforts taking a realistic and gradual approach, based on the firm belief that the horrors of nuclear weapon use must never be repeated.

[Note] «Global Zero Movement»
The Global Zero Movement was launched at its inaugural meeting held in December 2008 in Paris. Proposed by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and others, the campaign is an international and nonpartisan undertaking aimed at dealing with the growing threats of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism and realizing the gradual and verified elimination of the world’s nuclear weapons. On June 29, 2009, the Global Zero Commission held a meeting in Washington, D.C. where they released an action plan for eliminating nuclear weapons by the year 2030. The action plan was adopted at the Global Zero Summit held in Paris in February 2010. The Global Zero Summit was also held in London in June 2011.
The Global Zero Movement is supported by more than 100 eminent leaders who have experience in dealing with national security, such as former prime ministers, former foreign ministers, former defense ministers, former national security advisors, and more than 20 former top military officials.
In the past, heads of state and other officials from the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, and India have delivered messages to the Global Zero Summit, and this will be the first time for the Japanese Prime Minister to release a message.

(*The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

(END)