An 83-year-old survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki on Monday called for the elimination of nuclear weapons in his speech at the onset of a five-day U.N. meeting in New York.
"We're faced with a growing risk of nuclear war" and the devastation in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip is reminiscent of the suffering caused by the 1945 atomic bomb attacks, Sueichi Kido told a session of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The treaty, which took effect in January 2021, had 69 countries and territories as members as of early November. But the parties do not include countries that possess nuclear weapons.
Japan, the only country to have been attacked with atomic bombs, is not part of the treaty and did not send a representative to the first meeting of the parties last year in Vienna as well as the ongoing second meeting.
Kido, secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, also said a nuclear war would only leave a world of death.
The treaty parties will discuss issues such as how to verify the elimination of nuclear weapons through international organizations in the future and help the atomic bomb survivors and people affected by nuclear tests, before adopting a declaration on Friday.
"The risk of the deliberate or accidental use of nuclear weapons is today more present than ever before," Juan Ramon de la Fuente, a former Mexican ambassador to the world body who is chairing the meeting, told Monday's session.
Izumi Nakamitsu, U.N. undersecretary-general and high representative for disarmament affairs, said, "Rising geopolitical tensions are not a reason to put off progress in our shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons."