Hiroshima mayor ends visit to Austria, earns support for nuclear abolition
May 10, 2012
by Michiko Tanaka, Staff Writer, dispatched from Vienna
On May 7, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui returned to Japan from Vienna, Austria, where the First Preparatory Committee meetings for the 2015 NPT Review Conference are being held. The mayor completed his five-day schedule which included attending official functions organized by the preparatory committee.
At a workshop held by Mayors for Peace, for which he serves as president, Mr. Matsui delivered a speech, expressing his hope that people will visit Hiroshima and “share the experiences and sentiments of the A-bomb survivors.” The mayor also appealed to the governmental representatives of the world’s nations to support Hiroshima’s effort to host the next NPT review conference in the A-bombed city.
While in Vienna, Mr. Matsui submitted to Peter Woolcott, chair of the preparatory committee, a portion of the roughly 480,000 signatures that had been collected supporting the start of negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
On May 6, before he left Austria, Mr. Matsui stressed the successful nature of his trip, saying, “I shared my thoughts with the chair of the preparatory committee, as well as the U.N. ambassadors from a number of nations, and conveyed Hiroshima’s message that nuclear weapons are not needed on this earth.”
(Originally published on May 8, 2012)
On May 7, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui returned to Japan from Vienna, Austria, where the First Preparatory Committee meetings for the 2015 NPT Review Conference are being held. The mayor completed his five-day schedule which included attending official functions organized by the preparatory committee.
At a workshop held by Mayors for Peace, for which he serves as president, Mr. Matsui delivered a speech, expressing his hope that people will visit Hiroshima and “share the experiences and sentiments of the A-bomb survivors.” The mayor also appealed to the governmental representatives of the world’s nations to support Hiroshima’s effort to host the next NPT review conference in the A-bombed city.
While in Vienna, Mr. Matsui submitted to Peter Woolcott, chair of the preparatory committee, a portion of the roughly 480,000 signatures that had been collected supporting the start of negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
On May 6, before he left Austria, Mr. Matsui stressed the successful nature of his trip, saying, “I shared my thoughts with the chair of the preparatory committee, as well as the U.N. ambassadors from a number of nations, and conveyed Hiroshima’s message that nuclear weapons are not needed on this earth.”
(Originally published on May 8, 2012)
