Nihon Hidankyo on Wednesday expressed disappointment at being unable to discuss Japan’s possible participation as an observer to a U.N. conference on banning nuclear weapons during their 30-minute meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
In his opening remarks, Ishiba congratulated the atomic bomb survivors’ group on winning the Nobel Peace Prize and thanked them for “long years of hard work” and their “extremely meaningful” activism, while maintaining that Japan must defend itself against threats from China, Russia and North Korea.
“It was rather like the Prime Minister’s solo performance,” said 92-year-old Terumi Tanaka, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and one of the co-chairs of the grassroots group.
