Kishida is the first Japanese leader to attend a review conference. “I call on all nuclear weapon states to engage in a responsible manner,” he said in a speech.

Kishida aims for a world without nuclear weapons. But in light of the “harsh security environment” in the world today, he announced his new “Hiroshima Action Plan” — an initiative focused on continuing the non-use of nuclear weapons, enhancing transparency on nuclear forces, decreasing the global nuclear stockpile, promoting peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and encouraging visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Though the global stockpile “has significantly decreased since the peak of the Cold War, there are still more than 10,000 nuclear weapons in the world,” Kishida said. “Maintaining this decreasing trend is extremely important in getting closer to a world without nuclear weapons.”

In transparency, Kishida wants countries like China to disclose information on their production of plutonium and other fissile materials. Japan “encourages the US and China to engage in a bilateral dialogue on nuclear arms control and disarmament,” he said.

Kishida announced that Japan will contribute US$10 million to the UN for a new fund that brings youth from around the world to Hiroshima, “inviting future leaders to Japan and providing them with opportunities to learn firsthand the realities of nuclear weapon use.”

He plans to convene in September the first summit-level meeting of the Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty nations, aiming to put the treaty into force. The US and China have signed but not ratified the treaty, which prohibits nuclear tests in space, in the atmosphere, underwater and underground.

“We should never tolerate the threat of the use of nuclear weapons, such as that made recently by Russia” in its invasion of Ukraine, Kishida said.

“We must ensure that Nagasaki remains the last place to suffer an atomic bombing,” he said.

Kishida did not touch on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which would ban all nuclear weapons activities, including their development, use and threat of use. He instead focused on advancing disarmament under the NPT, which includes both nuclear powers and non-nuclear states.