Japan's Kishida to attend nuclear non-proliferation conference in Aug

Tokyo, June 22 Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is slated to attend a United Nations conference on nuclear non-proliferation to be held in New York in August, the Japanese government said.

He is expected to deliver a speech as early as August 1 when the conference begins, according to local media citing a government official on Tuesday.

Kishida will be the first Japanese Prime Minister to attend a review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Xinhua news agency reported.

"Joined by both nuclear powers and non-nuclear states, the NPT is the foundation of the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said in a press conference in Tokyo.

The review conference of the NPT will involve various countries, as well as survivors of the atomic bombings and civic groups. It had been held every five years from 1975 to 2015.

The upcoming meeting, scheduled from August 1 to 21, was originally slated to take place in 2020 but postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.