Zenroren protests US subcritical nuclear test

The National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) on October 15 sent a letter signed by Secretary General ODAGAWA Yoshikazu to US President Barack Obama in protest against the recent US subcritical nuclear test. The text of the letter follows:

The President of the United States of America

We lodge a protest against the 24th subcritical nuclear test by US

We lodge a protest with the United States over a subcritical nuclear test it conducted on September 15 in a Nevada test site for the 24th time.

Everyone knows that you expressed your commitment to a world without nuclear weapons in a speech you delivered in Prague in April 2009. The US delegate to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May joined other parties to the treaty to support the Final Document, which stressed the necessity to reduce and eliminate nuclear arsenals and constrain the development and qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons.

This latest US nuclear test disappoints people of Japan and the rest of the world, who wish to see nuclear weapons abolished. It also deviates from what the NPT Review Conference’s Final Document calls for. Clearly, it goes against the international effort to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and even gives pro-nuclear weapons forces the pretext for clinging to nuclear weapons.

We strongly demand that the United States give up all its plan to conduct nuclear tests and make effort to swiftly achieve the total prohibition of nuclear weapons on all occasions, including the current session of the UN General Assembly.