Tokyo, 26 December, /AJMEDIA/
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is considering attending a January meeting in New York to review the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, sources familiar with the plan said Saturday.
National leaders usually do not take part in an NPT Review Conference, the latest of which will start on Jan. 4, and whether Kishida will actually do so is uncertain due to surging cases of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus in the United States.
The U.N. conferences are held every five years to assess progress on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. The next session was initially due to take place in 2020 but was postponed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kishida, a House of Representatives member elected from the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima and an advocate of a world free of nuclear weapons, attended the last session as foreign minister in 2015.
Kishida, meanwhile, has expressed eagerness to have his first official summit with U.S. President Joe Biden at an early date.
However, the pandemic and the opposition of some Democrats to a U.S. spending bill mean a meeting between Kishida and Biden before Japan’s parliament convenes a regular session on Jan. 17 could prove difficult.
Along with participation in the NPT meeting, Kishida is also considering visiting Australia for talks with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, according to the sources.
If the meeting takes place, Kishida and Morrison are expected to affirm closer bilateral defense cooperation and the significance of the Quad, a four-nation grouping also involving the United States and India, in the face of the rise of China.