We strongly protest about Putin’s remarks that Russia was preparing to use nuclear weapons in Crimea

Statement by
INOUE Hisashi
Secretary- General
National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren)

March 23, 2015

In an interview broadcast as part of a Russia’s state-run TV documentary “Crimea: The Road Back Home”, aired by on March 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russian was preparing to use nuclear weapons amid fighting in the Crimean Peninsula Ukraine in March last year. Putin had Western interference in mind.

In the name of the trade union movement of Japan, the country that was attacked 70 years ago with atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Zenroren protests against Putin’s outrageous remarks.

Humankind cannot coexist with nuclear weapons. One atomic bomb on Hiroshima and another on Nagasaki left 210,000 people dead by the end of 1945. Today, seventy years after the nuclear attacks, so many people who were exposed to A-bomb radiation are still suffering from the after-effects.

There have been five joint statements adopted by the preparatory committee for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Review Conference and the UN General Assembly First Committee, which clearly stated that the non-use of nuclear weapons benefits the humankind and that the no-use of such weapons can only be guaranteed by their abolition.

The main agenda item of the next NPT Review Conference, which is to open in late April, is the elimination of nuclear weapons. We firmly believe that now is time for the world to achieve unity so that all countries can take steps forward toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The main trend of the world is one of calling for territorial and any other disputes to be solved without resorting to military force and by making efforts to achieve peaceful resolution of disputes. We strongly call on the Russian government to seek a peaceful resolution instead of using force.

Zenroren will increase its effort in cooperation with the world’s trade unions and citizens for peace to achieve a world without nuclear weapons or war. It expresses its determination to do more through collecting signatures and sending a delegation to the upcoming NPT Review Conference as part of the effort to achieve consensus on the effort to conclude a convention to eliminate nuclear weapons.