Opening Introduction

Hiromichi Umebayashi
Grand Prince Hotel Shin-Takanawa, Tokyo, Sep 14, 2014
Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to Tokyo from all around the world, and also welcome to Nagasaki,
as we, people of Nagasaki, is hosting this meeting. I am Hiromichi
Umebayashi, Director of Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition,Nagasaki University (RECNA).
Let me start the Workshop in a rather businesslike way as we are going tohave a Dinner Session after this first session and Nagasaki University’sPresident Katamine is going to address you with a welcome speech.
This is the third and final workshop of a series with a common sub-title“Developing a Comprehensive Approach to a NEA-NWFZ”. In fact it was themain title of the first workshop that was held in Nagasaki University inDecember 2012. The second one was held in Seoul in June 2013 with its main
title “Envisioning Northeast Asia Peace and Security System.” It wasorganized by Center for Peace and Public Integrity, Hanshin University,
ROK. Then in this third workshop, we set the main title as“Denuclearization of Northeast Asia and of the World”.
There are two major backgrounds for the workshop to bear this title. Firstly,the year 2015 is approaching. It is the year of 70 years anniversary ofHiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the year of 2015 NPT Review
Conference, which marks 20 years after 1995 Review and Extension
Conference. So, we wanted to put the NE Asian nuclear disarmament issue
in the global context. Unfortunately even on the Eve of this important year,
we have only very dim sight towards the world free of nuclear weapons. This
year’s Nagasaki Peace Declaration expresses concerns about the growing gap
between nuclear weapon states plus states under nuclear umbrella andgenuine non-nuclear weapon states, and says “if we cannot overcome thisopposition, then next year’s Review Conference will come to nothing.”

1Secondly, this recognition of slow progress to a nuclear weapon free world
has reassured the appropriateness of RECNA’s original intension to start
this series of workshops. Established in April 2012, RECNA took the themeof NEA-NWFZ as its central research theme, because we had a firm belief
that Japan would be able to take much stronger leadership in global
disarmament efforts if it could find exit from the current security policy
trapped in the nuclear deterrence by taking a policy alternative to establish
a NEA-NWFZ. As the only country that suffered from war-time nuclear
attack, the Japanese public voice against nuclear weapons is very verystrong. There is nothing more helpful to a Government than the public
support. But because of the nuclear trap, Japan has been unable to takeadvantage of it.
In starting the series of workshop, RECNA enjoyed a luck. In November 2012,just four months before the establishment of RECNA, Morton Halperinpresented an eye-opening proposal of his original form of Comprehensive
Agreement for Peace and Security in Northeast Asia, the updated version ofwhich has already been distributed to all of you. It was proposed at aworkshop in Tokyo organized by Nautilus Institute and others. I myself had
been working on the issue for a long time and attended at that workshop.
Thus RECNA has been working together with Mort and Peter Hayes from
Nautilus in all the three workshops.
Today we are going to listen to Ambassador Dhanapala’s keynote speech. In
this regard I want to add my personal memory. Dag Hammarskjold
Foundation hosted a major international symposium on NWFZ at Uppsala
University, Sweden in September 2000. The keynote speaker at that time
was Ambassador Dhanapala, then Under-Secretary-General of the United
Nations. It was very impressive speech to me and I have cited a part of it
frequently, including in my book on NWFZ, whose Korean version was justpublished with the publication date of tomorrow.
I won’t explain the program of the workshop as I think you can easily find it
in your package. The workshop is not open to the public except for theDinner Session, which is open to the media. The workshop session isoperated according to so-called Chatham House Rule, in which participants2are not allowed to disclose who spoke what in order to ensure free exchangeof views among participants. We have invited some experts working formedia companies but they are here to listen and discuss as researchers, notto report the sessions.
Lastly, I want to explain our logo. Please take a look at the bottom of page 2of the program. It is a deformed Chinese character “出”, which means “exit”
or “departure”. Here it symbolizes the “exit” from the nuclear deterrence and“departure” for a NEA-NWFZ. Nagasaki is famous for its port “Dejima” orExit Island, the only port open to overseas during the period on national
isolation in Japanese history.
Now, I want to finish my opening introduction, and I would like to invite
Ambassador Yukio Sato, Vice President, Japan Institute of International
Affairs, to chair the Session I.

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