HIROSHIMA AGREEMENT AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT PLEDGE

That this House strongly welcomes the signing of the Hiroshima Declaration on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, issued collectively by the foreign ministers of the G7 in Japan on 11 April 2016; notes it is especially poignant to have the signatures of US Secretary of State John Kerry and UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on the declaration representing respectively the nation that dropped the nuclear bombs on Japanese civilians in August 1945, and the nation that secretly supported the atomic immolation of civilians in that ultimate act of aggression, according to documents declassified by the US National Archives and Records Administration in 2013 and which record that Britain officially expressed its support for using the atomic bomb against Japan at the Combined Policy Committee meeting in Washington on 4 July 1945; further notes the positive disarmament initiative in the declaration that states, in this historic meeting, we reaffirm our commitment to seeking a safer world for all and to creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons in a way that promotes international stability; and therefore calls on the Government to open multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations forthwith with the other eight nuclear armed states under the good auspices of the United Nations Secretary General.