SGI Attends 2023 NPT Preparatory Committee; Co-organizes Side Events

Global 2023

Composite of photo showing a modern building, two men shaking hands and people in a conference room.

Vienna International Center (left); first session of the NPT Preparatory Committee Chair-designate Ambassador Jarmo Viinanen of Finland with SGI Director General for Peace and Global Issues Hirotsugu Terasaki (top right); the side event co-organized with the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the International Organizations in Vienna and the Center for International Security and Policy attending the first meeting of the 2023 Preparatory Committee (bottom right) [Top and bottom right photos only © Seikyo Shimbun]

From July 31 to August 11, the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2026 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (2023 NPT Preparatory Committee) was held at the Vienna International Centre in Austria. An SGI (Soka Gakkai International) delegation led by SGI Director General for Peace and Global Issues Hirotsugu Terasaki attended the meeting. On July 31, Mr. Terasaki submitted President Daisaku Ikeda’s Statement on the G7 Hiroshima Summit, the Ukraine Crisis and No First Use of Nuclear Weapons to the chair-designate of the first session, Ambassador Jarmo Viinanen of Finland. On August 2, a youth statement signed by some 50 organizations and individuals including the SGI was delivered during a plenary meeting for NGO presentations.

On August 1, the SGI co-organized a side event titled “The Catastrophic Consequences of Nuclear Tests in Kazakhstan: A First-Person History” together with Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the International Organizations in Vienna and the Center for International Security and Policy. On August 3, the SGI co-organized another side event with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament on the theme “No First Use as a path to Nuclear Disarmament.” Representatives of each organization spoke as did a representative from the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation.