Press Releases
Eleventh Ministerial Meeting of the Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)
September 25, 2024
The Eleventh Ministerial Meeting of the Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was held at United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York in the afternoon of September 24 (local time). The overview of the meeting is as follows.
- The meeting was attended by approximately 50 countries, including the Friends of the CTBT (Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and Finland) and Norway as a co-coordinator for facilitating the entry into force of the CTBT.
- Following the remarks by the Chair, Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Commonwealth of Australia, statements were made by Ms. NAKAMITSU Izumi, UN Under Secretary General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Dr. Robert Floyd, Executive Secretary of the Provisional Technical Secretariat, Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), member countries of the Friends of the CTBT, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Norway.
- In the statement of Ms. KAMIKAWA Yoko, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan (read by Dr. NAKAMURA Kimitake, Director-General of Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Science Department, who attended the meeting on behalf of the Minister), she stressed the need to steadily advance realistic and practical efforts toward a world without nuclear weapons amid the increasingly severe international security environment. As a part of such efforts, she called for the further reinforcement of efforts to promote the universalization and the early entry into force of the CTBT. (Statement by Minister KAMIKAWA (Japanese (PDF)
/ English (PDF)) - At the end of the meeting, a Joint Ministerial Statement was adopted. (Joint Statement (Japanese Outline) (PDF) / Joint Statement (English Original) (PDF))
- Japan will continue to make further contributions to the early entry into force of the CTBT and to the strengthening of its verification system and, will steadily implement realistic and practical measures toward the realization of a world without nuclear weapons, including efforts to promote the early entry into force of the CTBT.
(Reference) The Friends of the CTBT
The Friends of the CTBT was established in 2002 by Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, Finland, and Germany to maintain and strengthen momentum for promoting the entry into force of the CTBT. The group has held a total of 10 meetings of foreign ministers (*A High-level meeting was held in 2022).