Living with Hiroshima

A Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Central Asia

On May 3, 2005, by introduction of Tsutomu Ishiguri, the director of the U.N. Asia Pacific Peace Disarmament Center, I visited the representative of the Republic of Uzbekistan, who exerted himself to create a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia. When we were led into a room in the UN building, he said to us,“I’m impressed by the first visit from the A-bombed country. I feel familiar with you, because we, the same Asians look alike. Besides we have a lot of visitors from Japan to our capital, Tashkent.” I felt like apologizing for my ignorance.

The representative said calmly,“When the Soviet Union collapsed, Central Asia was filled with nuclear weapons. Thanks to the support of the U.N., we five countries successfully created a nuclear-weapon-free zone. Especially by the advice of Mr. Ishiguri, Japan helped us with negotiations between the countries and with money. Before then our country had no experience of international treaty negotiations, so we got some ideas from other countries. While we accumulated knowledge of diplomacy and made the draft of the treaty, we gradually began to learn the differences of national interests and diplomatic experiences. We had a hard time in management. In order to fall into step, it was important for the five countries to achieve the goal with the same feeling. We often had coffee time and discussed matters.” We heard this with deep emotion looking at each other with Mr. Ishiguri.

He continued, Kazakhstan takes a positive attitude for making a nuclear-weapon-free zone. It was decided that the presidents of the five countries would gather to sign the treaty in Semipalatinsk, where nuclear tests had been conducted no less than 460 times. Last week non-nuclear countries gathered in Mexico City. More than half of the U.N. members praised the nuclear demilitarization of Central Asia and supported it. If we can sign the treaty, it’ll go down in history.”

Since I had an opportunity to say a few words, I said,“Although I can only say the words from a citizen’s viewpoint, creating a nuclear-weapon-free zone especially requires courage, belief, and action. I hope the neighboring countries will follow you. I wish you success and thanks for giving us hope.”

I’m ashamed to say that I knew only the names of these countries, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, but I couldn’t point to them correctly on a map.

In this trip I knew the fact that these countries held a conference in Sapporo, in 1999 and 2000, in order to realize a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia.

In August, 2006, Prime Minister Koizumi visited the Republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. I heard that he discussed resource development aid, but I haven’t heard that he showed any interest in their making a nuclear-weapon-free zone.

On September 9, as I woke up early, I turned on the radio. NHK news reported, “Five Central Asian countries signed the agreement on the formation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone.” But TV and newspapers reported mainly the election of the next leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, or drunken driving.

U.N. committee members from Kazakhstan