Japanese students continue campaign to pressure gov’t to sign treaty banning nuclear weapons

By Berk Kutay Gokmen

ISTANBUL (AA) – Students from across Japan have been engaged in a mass campaign urging the government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the Mainichi daily reported Thursday.

They gathered in Tokyo and presented 22,465 signatures to the Foreign Ministry, arguing that Japan should play a role in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.

Around 60 junior high and high school students from Tokyo and seven prefectures including Osaka, Hiroshima and Okinawa along with university students in the capital began collecting signatures in 2021. They first submitted 13,642 signatures in 2022.

Since then, they have continued gathering signatures on the streets, at schools and online. This latest submission marks their second round of additional signatures.

The Japanese government did not participate in a UN meeting on the prohibition of nuclear weapons that took place on March 3-7 at UN headquarters in New York.

An official from the Foreign Ministry said Japan’s participation in the meeting "would send the wrong message about Japan's nuclear deterrence policy and could hinder the assurance of peace and security."

Japan is the only nation to have been struck by nuclear weapons in war. The 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to the deaths of approximately 210,000 people.