Foreign ministers’ meeting in Hiroshima: Written interview with Stéphane Dion, Canada’s minister of foreign affairs
Apr. 3, 2016
What hopes do you have for your visit to Hiroshima?
This will be my first visit to Hiroshima. Hiroshima is renowned for its natural beauty, cultural heritage, and delicious food, including its famous okonomiyaki. I am also looking forward to seeing first-hand the strong grassroots connections that exist between Hiroshima and Canada.
What would you like to discuss at the foreign ministers’ meeting?
Canada looks forward to a constructive dialogue with our G7 partners on a wide range of pressing international security issues. Canada and Japan have been like-minded partners on many issues and we look forward to working with Japan during its presidency year. We hope to advance our common interests on international security objectives such as terrorism and countering ISIL, maritime security, nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and Russia/Ukraine.
What suggestions will you make for strengthening peace in the world?
As North Korea’s recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests demonstrated, further progress in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is needed to create the conditions for global peace. The international community must work with conviction and in concert to ensure universal adherence and compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Canada is actively pursuing the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which would ban the production of materials used to create nuclear weapons.
Do you support “a world without nuclear weapons”?
Canada actively supports a world without nuclear weapons and is fully engaged in achieving this goal by encouraging practical and politically viable approaches to nuclear disarmament that are inclusive of all stakeholders. We advocate a step-by-step approach to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament that halts the spread of nuclear weapons, reduces existing stockpiles and ultimately eliminates them.
We are also participating in the Open-Ended Working Group established by the U.N. General Assembly in the fall of 2015 to “substantively address concrete effective legal measures, legal provisions and norms that will need to be concluded to attain and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.” We believe that the step-by-step approach provides the best path to succeeding in eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide.
Do you have any suggestions as to what the youth of Hiroshima can do to promote peace?
Youth are the key to building peaceful, pluralistic, and resilient societies. Their contributions to peace in their own communities help build peace and security elsewhere.
(Originally published on April 3, 2016)
Read the full interview here.
This will be my first visit to Hiroshima. Hiroshima is renowned for its natural beauty, cultural heritage, and delicious food, including its famous okonomiyaki. I am also looking forward to seeing first-hand the strong grassroots connections that exist between Hiroshima and Canada.
What would you like to discuss at the foreign ministers’ meeting?
Canada looks forward to a constructive dialogue with our G7 partners on a wide range of pressing international security issues. Canada and Japan have been like-minded partners on many issues and we look forward to working with Japan during its presidency year. We hope to advance our common interests on international security objectives such as terrorism and countering ISIL, maritime security, nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and Russia/Ukraine.
What suggestions will you make for strengthening peace in the world?
As North Korea’s recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests demonstrated, further progress in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is needed to create the conditions for global peace. The international community must work with conviction and in concert to ensure universal adherence and compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Canada is actively pursuing the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, which would ban the production of materials used to create nuclear weapons.
Do you support “a world without nuclear weapons”?
Canada actively supports a world without nuclear weapons and is fully engaged in achieving this goal by encouraging practical and politically viable approaches to nuclear disarmament that are inclusive of all stakeholders. We advocate a step-by-step approach to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament that halts the spread of nuclear weapons, reduces existing stockpiles and ultimately eliminates them.
We are also participating in the Open-Ended Working Group established by the U.N. General Assembly in the fall of 2015 to “substantively address concrete effective legal measures, legal provisions and norms that will need to be concluded to attain and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.” We believe that the step-by-step approach provides the best path to succeeding in eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide.
Do you have any suggestions as to what the youth of Hiroshima can do to promote peace?
Youth are the key to building peaceful, pluralistic, and resilient societies. Their contributions to peace in their own communities help build peace and security elsewhere.
(Originally published on April 3, 2016)
Read the full interview here.
