TASK
SETTING
TASK
1 (Support of the Trilateral Initiative)
With regard to the excess fissile materials that emerged as a
result of nuclear arms reductions by the US and Russia, a Trilateral
Initiative was launched in 1996, under which they would work with the
IAEA to ensure that these materials were not used for weapons purposes
again. If this system is fully established, it could be used for other
nuclear-weapon States, and thus it has deep significance for the total
elimination of nuclear weapons under article VI of the NPT.
In addition, this initiative, which was originally related to
the START process, should have been observed with an updated interest
during the relevant period of this report, when the START process fell
into crisis.
EVALUATION
As for TASK
1, the Japanese Path Resolution did not
mention the Trilateral Initiative in particular. This should be
interpreted as meaning that the Japanese government did not oppose the
initiative, but regarded its contents as being included in the 10th
item of the 13 steps, which calls on all the nuclear-weapon States for
similar efforts. However, as we wrote before, now that the START
process between the US and Russia is being replaced by unilateral
reduction processes, it can be said that the necessity to grasp the
Trilateral Initiative in an alternative context is increasing.
To this extent, Japan did not tackle this item sufficiently,
and we give it a D grade.
