Japan Refuses To Sign Non-Proliferation Treaty Statement That Nuclear Weapons Will Not Be Used日本ＮＰＴの核不使用声明に署名せず

(Source) http://www.japancrush.com/2013/stories/japan-refuses-to-sign-nuclear-treaty-joint-statement.html by Beth on Saturday, April 27, 2013

There has been considerable outrage from Japanese netizens on Twitter as news breaks that Amano Mari, the Japanese government representative for the Conference on Disarmament, fails to sign a joint statement by 74 nations prior to a review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in Geneva, Switzerland.
The statement asked representatives to commit to not using nuclear weapons under any circumstances, but Amano said that this conflicted with Japanese security policy.
As a nation that has the suffering of both the atomic bomb and nuclear disasters still in living memory, Japanese netizens took to Twitter to make their feelings known.

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*Japan admits the obvious

(Source) http://peaceandhealthblog.com/ by John Loretz

When some 50 protesters gathered outside the Japanese Mission to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva yesterday, questioning that country’s refusal to sign onto a joint statement on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons submitted to the NPT PrepCom by 74 other non-nuclear-weapon states, Ambassador Mari Amano felt obliged to give an answer. Why, after all, would the only country ever to have felt the full effects of atomic bombings find it difficult to condemn their existence on humanitarian grounds and join an appeal for their total elimination?
The statement says the use of nuclear weapons must be prevented “under any circumstances.” That wording, Ambassador Mori explained to NHK TV, conflicts with Japan’s national security policy, specifically its extended nuclear deterrence agreement with the United States. He elaborated that in a conflict, the US could use nuclear weapons to “defend” Japan. So in some circumstances…
At least he was honest.
So here’s what this means: By entering into an agreement with a nuclear-armed state that its weapons are, in effect, yours by proxy, and that they can be used on your behalf (in fact, you expect that to be so), you lose not only your moral standing to condemn nuclear weapons along with most of the rest of the world, but also your political capacity to join others in an unfolding process that could lead to their abolition. In other words, you become unable to provide for your own and everyone else’s security in the most meaningful way possible, while leaving your people vulnerable to annihilation by weapons you neither possess nor control. Sweet deal!

For countries such as Australia and the Republic of Korea, which also live under the threat of extended deterrence and also declined to sign the joint statement, this simply illustrates the corrupting nature of nuclear politics. For Japan—the embodiment of all that is inhumane about nuclear weapons, the one country universally invoked as the moral center of the abolition movement, the home of the Hibakusha—the decision not to sign is tragic and inexcusable.