TOKYO, July 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 26, ahead of the Tenth NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) Review Conference that opens on August 1 at UN Headquarters in New York, Soka Gakkai International (SGI) President Daisaku Ikeda called on the five nuclear-weapon states to declare that they will never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict: the principle of "No First Use."
Today the risk that nuclear weapons will be used is at its highest level since the Cold War. Ikeda, a passionate campaigner for nuclear abolition for over 60 years, urges the five nuclear-weapon states under the NPT -- the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China -- to give substance to a joint statement made by their leaders on January 3, 2022, that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," by declaring policies of No First Use.
He proposes that the following points be included in the Final Document of the Review Conference:
Ikeda urges: "We must remember that it was never the purpose of the NPT to establish continuing nuclear threat and confrontation as the inevitable fate of humankind." He asks us to learn from the world's hibakusha -- the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the testing of nuclear weapons -- who insist that no one anywhere should suffer what they have endured.
Ikeda argues that commitment to No First Use would also free resources to protect people from shared threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
On August 4, during the NPT Review Conference, the SGI will hold a side event promoting No First Use together with other like-minded organizations.
Read full statement: https://sgi-peace.org/resources/2022-statement-calling-for-no-first-use
Daisaku Ikeda (1928 - ) is a Buddhist philosopher, author and president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), an NGO promoting peace, culture and education in consultative status since 1983 with UN ECOSOC. Every year since 1983, Ikeda has authored peace proposals offering concrete approaches to resolving the complex global issues facing humanity, centering on the need to abolish nuclear weapons.www.daisakuikeda.org
Contact: Joan AndersonInternational Office of Public InformationSoka Gakkai+81-80-5957-4711anderson[at]soka.jp
