Anti-nuclear group of India submitted a letter to the Japanese Government to oppose Japan-India nuclear agreement

» Anti-nuclear group of India submitted a letter to the Japanese Government to oppose Japan-India nuclear agreement

2015/11/27

The agreement will “shake the NPT regime”

November 27

Press release by FoE Japan
Provisional Translation: Fukushima Beacon for Global Citizens Network

It is reported that there is high possibility that Japan-India nuclear agreement will be signed at the time of Prime Minister Abe’s visit to India in coming December. the voice of criticism has been raised from inside and outside Japan that the agreement between two countries, India which does not participate in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and Japan which was suffered by atomic bomb in the war, overturned Japan’s nuclear non-proliferation policy and impairs the efforts for the nuclear non-proliferation of the world.

Mr. Kumar Sundaram and Dr. Vaishali Patil, who have been tackling for abolition of nuclear weapons in India and are visiting Japan now, visited the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan on November 26 to submit a letter from NAAM:National Alliance of Anti-Nuclear Movement to ask not to make Japan-India nuclear agreement.

The letter addressed to Prime Minister Abe and the Japanese parliamentarians pointed out that nuclear power bring risk to life and environment in various ways and nuclear power is not sustainable energy. It asks Japanese government to invest more for renewable energy not for nuclear power.

In the meeting with the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Patil pointed out, “in spite of the large amount of investment to nuclear power, it occupies only 2.8 percent of energy production in India. Indian government seeks nuclear power not for energy production but for holding nuclear weapons. ”
After talking about the situation in Jaitapur where residents have been oppressed by the government in the movement against construction of the nuclear power plant, she said,”Please think well what it means by making a nuclear cooperation to India under such circumstances”.

Mr. Sundaram criticized that “Japan-India nuclear agreement will shake the NPT regime in the world” and pointed out that “introduction of nuclear power generation which is large scale, centralized and benefit the huge capital will make rich one more rich and poor one poorer. It endangers the local inhabitants “.

In addition, FoE Japan mentioned that “though the Japanese government treats such terrible suppression of human rights as ‘internal affairs ,’ the government made a certain agreement a few decades ago that there was responsibility in Japanese side for human rights issues in other countries if it was caused by Japanese aid.” FoE Japan also pointed out that “nuclear cooperation to India which has not signed NPT means that Japan admits India to hold nuclear weapons and it also impairs credit of Japan. We strongly oppose the agreement as Japanese citizens. ”

The letter from NAAM to Prime Minister Abe and members of Japanese Parliament: NO nuclear power but renewable energies, towards the nuclear free world

Source: FoE Japan (original in Japanese)