Japan recently refused to support an international joint statement which stressed that "It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances."

The Japanese government's failure to sign the statement is regrettable in view of the simple fact that Japan became the first nation in history to suffer from the use of nuclear weapons through the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. In addition, a nuclear catastrophe happened at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, causing great hardship to residents of Fukushima Prefecture.

Some 150,000 people from the prefecture are still forced to live away from their homes because the homes are located in areas contaminated by radioactive substances from the plant.