The Prime Minister's introduction at the press conference after the meeting with the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates

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Good morning, everybody,

And a special welcome to the Nobel Peace Prize Laurates. It is a great honour for me to receive you here at the Government Guest House. This morning, I received from children of the Japanese school in Oslo this fantastic token of a message of hope and peace; these are cranes, created with paper by Japanese children in Norway; it is a wonderful Japanese tradition of peace and hope and I was able to bring it here to show you.

I would like to welcome the three co-chairs of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Nihon Hidankyo: Mr. Terumi Tanaka, Mr. Shigemitsu Tanaka and Mr. Toshiyuki Mimaki.

It is a tradition that the Prime Minister receives the laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize the day after the ceremony.

I have been very happy to convey – on behalf of the Norwegian government and parliament, and I believe of the Norwegian population – congratulations to Nihon Hidankyo on receiving the prize for exceptional work of its members, during almost seven decades. The speech by the laureate yesterday made a deep impression on us.

You know, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is a very independent entity that awards the Nobel Peace Prize according to the will of Alfred Nobel.

Nihon Hidankyo received the prize for their efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons, and for demonstrating through its work and grassroots activities, and through real testimony of people who had experienced this only event of a nuclear weapon, why this weapon must never be used again.

And for someone who was born 15 years after, and who has grown up in a peaceful and stable country, it is deeply moving to hear these testimonies from someone who personally lived through and can testify to the light, the images, the smells, and the other signs of the horror.

So, because of the tireless work of these survivors, the Hibakusha, I grew up with acute awareness of these horrors, and it became part of a political movement around the world to create a world without nuclear weapons.

We have to do a lot of work politically to bring nuclear disarmament back on the international agenda. It is depressing that the nuclear powers are withdrawing from treaties and agreements on disarmament, and that threats of using nuclear weapons are again being used in ongoing conflicts.

We cannot accept this, and we have to, from every country, every government, and from grassroots mobilization, to put pressure on the nuclear powers to re-engage in nuclear disarmament.

Now, we have this word of a ‘nuclear taboo’, which means that one achievement of humanity is that the weapon has not been used since 1945. We have to keep that taboo alive and relevant, and I believe that this prize, at this grave international situation we live in now, where tensions are increasing and the threats of nuclear weapons are articulated, it is a very, very timely reminder. Because next year it will be 80 years, so we will enter 2025 with a strong message of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

So, Mr. Tanaka, congratulations, and thank you for articulating your strong message in Oslo.

 

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