Speech by Mr. Issei NOMURA,

Ambassador of Japan to the Russian Federation
at the International Conference "G8 Global Partnership
Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction"

April 23, 2004
Venue: Center for Policy Studies in Russia (PIR center)

I am happy to join the discussion on one of the most important aspects of G8 Global Partnership, in which I was involved personally. It is the dismantlement of the decommissioned nuclear submarines. As we know, along the coast line of the Russian Far East 13 decommissioned nuclear submarines are under the process of dismantlement, and 30 decommissioned nuclear submarines are left unattended. There is always a serious danger of leakage of radioactive materials from those unattended submarines. Therefore, the dismantlement of these submarines is an urgent task to protect the ocean, including the Sea of Japan, from any possible environmental contamination, resulting from radiation. In addition, complete dismantlement of decommissioned submarines and thorough control and full disposal of radioactive materials have become even more important under the threat of terrorism. This is the rationale of Japan’s cooperation with Russia, which is generally supported by the people of Japan under some uneasiness. I stress “under some uneasiness”. In June last year, a League of Parliamentarians was established in the Japanese Diet to support projects for dismantlement of nuclear submarines in the Russian Far East. Lately, the League held its meeting in March, and reconfirmed the importance of cooperation with Russia. There is a general consensus in Japan to support the dismantlement. However, when I say “under some uneasiness”, I mean to say that there exists somewhat an empty feeling in the mind of the Japanese people about spending enormous amount of money only for the purpose of dismantling weapons of foreign countries without any assurance of the timing when it ends. This is a very delicate aspect of the people’s emotional sentiment.

So far so good. Japanese public understands in general the need for the government to cooperate with Russia in dismantling decommissioned nuclear submarines. However, the government should always pay due attention to any possible emotional reaction of the people. I am of the opinion that the government should abide by the two guiding principles; one is the display of maximum possible transparency to the people, and the other is the provision of enough accountability to the people. In order to act on these guiding principles, we need cooperation of the relevant Russian authorities, including the naval forces. I should like to point out 3 specific areas where we need Russia’s cooperation.

1) First of all, we need to provide to the people through mass-media basic information on what is going on in the shipyards and other project sites, to the extent that the people could visualize that the dismantlement is safely and successfully conducted.

2) Secondly, we need to stimulate public awareness of the necessity of the dismantlement. Today’s conference will definitely serve this purpose in Russia. But, in Japan when I say “G8 Global Partnership”, how many people in Japan would know what it is all about? Japan is planning to hold a seminar on cooperation for denuclearization in Tokyo this year under the joint auspices of Japanese-Russian Committee on Cooperation to Assist the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Dismantlement of nuclear submarines is one of the main issues on the agenda of the seminar. I hope that this seminar would deepen the understanding of the Japanese people about our joint efforts. We expect active participation from Russia to this seminar.

3) Thirdly, we need to explain to our public that our cooperation extends only to those submarines which are presently left unattended, and not to the submarines in operation now and those to be built in the future. In this connection I welcome the remarks of Mr.Antipov which were made a few minutes ago. He said that all the submarines will be dismantled around the year 2010. I sincerely hope that this will be the case.

Having said all these, I am happy to recall that in June last year Mr.Antipov and myself signed at Vladivostok the Agreement on the Implementation of the project of dismantlement of a Victor III-class nuclear submarine. The process of dismantlement started in December of the same year, and dismantlement is going on smoothly at present. It is expected to be completed by October this year. In fact I heard from Mr.Shulegan, director of “Zvezda” shipyard, that the dismantlement is ahead of schedule and will be finished by the end of summer.

In February this year, we started consultations with Russia on new aspects of cooperation for denuclearization. Recently, we have agreed to cooperate on further dismantlement of nuclear submarines. Possibilities for projects related to the dismantlement of nuclear submarines, such as construction of storage facilities for nuclear compartments and radio-ecological monitoring and emergency response system, are also being studied.

Assuming that the cost of the dismantlement of one submarine approximately equals the expenses for the dismantlement of the first submarine, and provided that all the funds contributed by Japan are spent for the purposes of the dismantlement only, this will be sufficient for the dismantlement of more than 20 submarines.

I sincerely hope that dismantlement of all the decommissioned nuclear submarines will be accomplished smoothly in the future without causing any negative emotional reaction from the people. We have a proverb in Japan which says “A good beginning makes a good ending”. I should like to be an optimist on this matter.