Visiting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Wednesday that Japan, as the world's only country to be attacked with nuclear weapons in war, should support a U.N. treaty banning such weapons.

In an interview with Kyodo News in the city of Fukuoka, Mahathir also said that he thought other countries should emulate Article 9 of Japan's Constitution, which bars it from waging war as a means of settling international disputes, calling it the only such constitutional provision in the world.

"Japan is the only country in the world which has outlawed war, aggressive war, in order to solve problems of conflict between nations," he said.