TOYAKO, Japan (AFP) — Japan's former foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi will co-chair a new commission proposed by Australia to advance the cause of non-proliferation, the two countries announced Wednesday.
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd agreed on the appointment when they met on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit, Japanese officials said.
Australia's former foreign minister Gareth Evans has already been appointed co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, which will gather experts from around the world.
Kawaguchi is one of Japan's most prominent female politicians. She became the country's first environmental minister in 2001 and then served as foreign minister under prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Rudd proposed the commission on a visit to Japan last month after touring the site of the world's first nuclear attack in Hiroshima.
Rudd said the body would aim to lay the groundwork for the next review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2010.
Advocates of the NPT have been disheartened by a steady erosion of the treaty, which came into force in 1970 and confined nuclear weapons to the hands of five powers -- Britain, China, France, the then Soviet Union and the United States.
India and Pakistan declared themselves nuclear powers in 1998, while North Korea tested an atom bomb in 2006.
Rudd has said that Australia, which has the largest known uranium reserves, and Japan, a major nuclear energy power, could play a role in non-proliferation.
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