Takeshi Iwaya, the Foreign Minister of Japan, is scheduled to speak at the upcoming preparatory meeting for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference set to begin later this month in New York, according to government sources released Thursday. During this third preparatory committee meeting for the 2026 NPT review, Iwaya is likely to emphasize the need for unity in light of growing rifts between nuclear-armed and non-nuclear states regarding disarmament strategies.

This upcoming event represents the third occasion a Japanese foreign minister has participated in an NPT preparatory meeting, and it is notably the first instance since 2018. This development follows Japan's decision to abstain from a March U.N. meeting convened to discuss the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, despite pressure for the participation of the nation that experienced atomic bombings during World War II.

Recent NPT review conferences, conducted in 2015 and 2022, did not yield a conclusive outcome document, reflecting the ongoing discord among nuclear-capable nations. The backdrop of rising military tensions, particularly influenced by Russia's actions in Ukraine and China's rapidly expanding military capacities, further complicates the landscape of international nuclear disarmament discussions.