On December 28, the Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture sent a letter to participating countries in the NPT Review Conference in New York from January 4 next year, writing his expectation for concrete progress in the conference and requesting to visit Hiroshima in the near future as follow.

December 28, 2021

Your Excellency,

I am delighted that the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will be held next month, after multiple postponements.

The NPT regime is committed to preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as achieving the total elimination of them in the future, thus playing a vital role in global peace. In the Review Conference held every five years, parties are expected to reach a consensus on a concrete course of action and ensure its implementation.

However, the 2015 Review Conference failed to reach a consensus on the final document. To make matters worse, the next conference had to be postponed multiple times due to COVID-19. That is why for the past six years and nine months, we have lacked a concrete course of action toward achieving nuclear non-proliferation and elimination. The failure of the previous conference has led to a considerable loss of faith in the NPT regime. Therefore, the scheduled Review Conference must be a success: it is imperative that the parties reach a final agreement that lays out concrete measures. Whether we can pass a sustainable and peaceful world on to the next generation depends on the conference’s outcome. I hope all contracting states participate with sincerity.

We recently organized the Hiroshima Round Table, which is a venue for multilateral discussion on nuclear disarmament. Experts in international politics and national security participated from across the world to discuss alternatives to nuclear deterrence. We issued a chair’s statement based on the discussion, which calls for concrete engagement by the global community, including reducing dependence on nuclear weapons. Please read through the chair’s statement attached to this document.

In conjunction with the NPT Review Conference, we will be holding an online side-event on the theme of “Understanding Different Perspectives Around Nuclear Risk Perception & Deterrence” on January 5, 2022, which will involve a panel discussion of experts from various countries. In addition, the event venue will be hosting a banner exhibition for sharing the details of the Hiroshima Report, which presents the results of our research, analysis, and assessment of initiatives by individual countries in the areas of nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, and nuclear security, as well as explaining the Hiroshima Initiative, a new proposal for the elimination of nuclear weapons that we formulated on the occasion of the 75th year of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. We hope you can join us for the event and the exhibition.

Finally, I would like to wish all of you health and success, hoping that in the near future, you can visit Hiroshima to learn about the realities of the atomic bombing and make a new step toward achieving a peaceful world free of nuclear weapons.

Yours sincerely,

YUZAKI Hidehiko

Governor

Hiroshima Prefecture

Attachments

Chair’s Statement of the Hiroshima Round Table 2021

The Hiroshima Round Table gathered nuclear abolition and international relations experts including former Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, former UN-Under Secretary-General, and experts from the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and released the Chair’s Statement.

https://hiroshimaforpeace.com/en/hiroshimaroundtablechairstatement2021/

NPT Review Conference Side-Event 2022

Understanding Different Perspectives Around Nuclear Risk Perception & Deterrence

https://www.pref.hiroshima.lg.jp/soshiki/232/npt-review-conference-side-event-2022.html