The International Meeting of the 2025 World Conference against A and H Bombs ended in Hiroshima City on August 4 after adopting a declaration which calls on “the peoples of the world to take grand actions for prevention of nuclear war and the elimination of nuclear weapons.”
On the first day of the two-day meeting, Noguchi Kunikazu, co-head of the World Conference Steering Committee, gave a speech on behalf of the organizer. Stating that this year marks 80 years since the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he appealed for the need to restore the peace order based on the UN Charter and international law as well as to develop a global solidarity and cooperation in order to realize a peaceful and sustainable world.
In each session during the meeting, activists shared civil society’s efforts made in nuclear-weapon states and nuclear-dependent countries to overcome the “nuclear deterrence” theory and change these governments’ nuclear policies. They also exchanged views on how to promote international joint actions aimed at achieving a world without nuclear weapons.
The adopted Declaration states that people in the world “are once again facing the danger of the use of nuclear weapons” and thus “overcoming the ‘nuclear deterrence’ doctrine has become ever more important.” It urges nuclear-armed states and their allies to abandon their “nuclear deterrence” policy. It stresses that the collaboration between civil society, led by atomic bomb survivors, and governments around the world is the world’s mainstream, and that it is urgent to expand public support for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and to increase the number of participating countries.
The Declaration states, “Let us develop diverse forms of actions for the elimination of nuclear weapons as our common goal everywhere in the world, placing the effort to inherit and disseminate the damage and sufferings of the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
On August 4, following the International Meeting, a special program of this year’s World Conference took place, with 2,000 people including overseas delegates participating, to commemorate 80 years since the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In the program, Hiroshima A-bomb survivors (Hibakusha) talked about their own experience struggling to survive and young peace activists expressed their determination to pass on the testimonies and struggles of Hibakusha to future generations.
Japan Press Weekly
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