Panel proposes inviting Obama to visit Hiroshima, Nagasaki

HIROSHIMA--With international anti-nuclear support growing due to the efforts of U.S. President Barack Obama, now is the time for Japan, as the only country to have experienced an atomic bomb attack, to make known its opinions on disarmament, perhaps by hosting a summit of nuclear powers, experts at a peace symposium said here Saturday.

The symposium's panelists proposed inviting Obama to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities devastated by atomic bombs in 1945.

Frank von Hippel, who was assistant director for national security at the White House office for science and technology policy under U.S. President Bill Clinton, went one step further.

"(Hiroshima) would be the right place for a summit of the leaders of (all) the nuclear states to discuss disarmament," said von Hippel, a nuclear physicist who is a Princeton University professor.

Having world leaders listen to accounts of hibakusha and view A-bomb exhibits could convince them of the horrors of nuclear warfare and propel efforts to dismantle nuclear arsenals, he said.

The International Symposium for Peace Toward the 2010 NPT Review Committee: The Road to the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, held at the International Conference Center Hiroshima, drew about 450 participants.

Main sponsors were The Asahi Shimbun, the city of Hiroshima and the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation.

In his opening statement, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba lauded Obama's April address in Prague, in which the president said Washington would work toward a nuclear-free world.

"The momentum toward abolishing nuclear weapons is rising as never before," Akiba said.

Panelists agreed that the tide is turning, but that obstacles remain. Key challenges include reining in other weapons programs including missile defense, controlling stockpiles of fissile material and convincing North Korea and Iran to stop nuclear weapons development.

Some speakers noted the Japanese government appears to be wary of Washington's drastic shift in favor of disarmament and is concerned that it might undermine the deterrent effect of the "nuclear umbrella" and lead to a shift in the power balance in East Asia.

Such a stance "weakens the message from Japan and the credibility of Japan as the only country to have been subjected to a nuclear attack," said Katsuko Kataoka, secretary-general of the Japan branch of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

"The government should adopt policies and engage in diplomacy that will allow it to lead the drive for a world without nuclear weapons," she said.(IHT/Asahi: August 3,2009)