SAITAMA (Kyodo) About 85 government officials, academic experts and civic group representatives from 18 countries gathered in Saitama to discuss concrete steps toward a nuclear-free world in a three-day U.N. meeting on nuclear disarmament that started Wednesday.
The U.N. Conference on Disarmament Issues, which has been held annually in Japan since 1989, opened with speeches by Sergio Duarte, U.N. high representative for disarmament affairs, and Koichi Takemasa, state secretary for foreign affairs, on promoting nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.
Durante said the timing of the Saitama conference that followed U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's "historic" visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki earlier in the month "could hardly be better."