Tokyo: Japan will not sign a United Nations treaty to ban nuclear weapons, a top government official insisted on Monday.
The UN said 50 countries have ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, known as the TPNW, paving the way for it to come into effect in 90 days.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said Japan shared the goal of achieving a nuclear-free world but did not think the treaty was the way to go.
"Japan's approach is different from that of the treaty, and there is no change to our position not to sign it," he told reporters.
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The UN announcement was hailed by anti-nuclear activists, including survivors of the nuclear bombs dropped over Japan in 1945.
But the treaty has been strongly opposed by the United States and the other major nuclear powers.
With nuclear powers and non-nuclear weapons states sharply divided over the treaty, it was not realistic to pursue the goal, Kato said.
Asked if Japan at least welcomed the treaty taking effect next year, Kato just repeated Japan's stance.
Japan has refused to sign the treaty even though it is the world's only country to have suffered nuclear attacks and renounces its possession, production or hosting of nuclear weapons.
That's because Japan, as a U.S. ally, hosts 50,000 American troops and is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
There are over 14,000 nuclear bombs in the world, many of them are tens times greater than the weapons dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that killed more than 210,000 people in the closing days of the World War II.
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The treaty was approved by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly in 2017.
The five nuclear powers and four other countries are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons — India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — boycotted negotiations and the vote on the treaty, along with many of their allies, including Japan.
AP
