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NPDI foreign ministerial meeting, related events, to be held in Hiroshima next April

by Kohei Okata, Staff Writer

On December 11, the City of Hiroshima announced that it will hold a public symposium in the city, as well as a gathering at which foreign ministers and atomic bomb survivors can exchange views, on April 12, 2014. These events will take place on the sidelines of the foreign ministerial meeting of the Non-proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI), an effort comprised of 12 non-nuclear states.

According to plans drawn up by the council responsible for supporting the NPDI foreign ministerial meeting, A-bomb survivors, citizens, and foreign ministers will gather to exchange their views. At the public symposium, government officials will discuss nuclear abolition with a focus on the inhumanity of nuclear weapons. The plans for these events are being discussed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the council, which is composed of Hiroshima Prefecture, the City of Hiroshima, and the Hiroshima Chamber of Commerce and Industry, among other entities.

A tour of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and a session to listen to the accounts of A-bomb survivors have already been included in the plan for the ministerial meeting.

This information was provided on December 11 by Toru Oikawa, director general of the Citizens Affairs Bureau, during the general inquiry session of the city assembly. Mr. Oikawa said, “We hope to send out a message to all corners of the world that nuclear weapons should be eliminated by 2020 [the aim of Mayors for Peace].”

(Originally published on December 12, 2013)

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