By Kay Scrimger
June 29, 2009

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, President of Mayors for Peace, addressed the 77th Annual Conference of Mayors Meeting at Saturday morning's Plenary Session.

Mayors for Peace is an international organization of almost 3,000 mayors from 134 nations. One of its immediate goals is to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons by the year 2020 — the Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign. By that time, Akiba expects that Mayors for Peace membership will be more than 5,000 member cities from around the world.

Akiba thanked The U.S. Conference of Mayors for its decades of strong support for nuclear disarmament. "American mayors have led the 2020 Vision campaign for a nuclear-free world, and I thank you for your generous support, which has been the strongest in the world."

In particular, Akiba noted the Conference of Mayors' 2004 resolution calling for nuclear disarmament negotiations to begin; the 2006 resolution stating that cities cannot be targets of nuclear attack and pointed out the vulnerability of cities; and the 2008 resolution, which endorsed the 2020 Vision Campaign of Mayors for Peace

"The shadow of nuclear annihilation still hangs over the world," he warned. He said that there has been some progress, especially President Barack Obama's strong statement in Prague of moral leadership on this issue, which "has galvanized leaders around the world."

He also said that another mark of progress is that after thirteen years of stalemate, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva has recently formed a work group on this issue, with item one addressing nuclear disarmament.

The Conference on Disarmament was established in 1979 as the single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum of the international community. It grew out of the first special session on disarmament of the United Nations General Assembly in 1978.

"But what distance toward a nuclear-free world has already been covered, and what distance do we have to travel?" he asked.

"We must fast track global nuclear disarmament," he emphasized. "We need the U.S. Administration to acknowledge that cities are on the front line in any nuclear war." He asked mayors to encourage President Obama's continuing support on this issue and to lobby the U.S. Senate, in which the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty has languished since 1998.

President Obama said in April in Prague that he would ask the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, part of his goal to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Akiba pointed out other nations that have not signed the treaty are Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

"I am more convinced than ever that a sea change is occurring on recognition of the need for a nuclear-free world," he said. "Your President sees it, and we ask your help as mayors to encourage the Administration to continue to move forward on this issue."

Akiba also expressed his appreciation to USCM CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran for his efforts on behalf of a nuclear-weapon-free world, to Conference of Mayors Past President Akron Mayor Donald L. Plusquellic and to Former USCM President former Long Beach Mayor Beverly O'Neill. In 2005, O' Neill and Cochran were in Hiroshima for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Plusquellic is one of the Vice Presidents of Mayors for Peace.

Plusquellic and Des Moines (IA) Mayor Frank Cownie, along with Cochran, participated in a Mayors for Peace conference held at the United Nations on May 4, in conjunction with negotiations on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Plusquellic also addressed an earlier United Nations Mayors for Peace meeting in 2005.

Cochran said, "We were very pleased to have our friend Mayor Akiba travel to Providence to address our Annual Conference. We are honored that he could be with us here, just as we were for his presence with us at our Winter Meeting in Washington in 2006. We are very grateful for his strong and effective leadership of Mayors for Peace and thank him for joining us to discuss the 2020 Vision Campaign."