岸田首相ＮＰＴ出席、見送りの公算　コロナ感染状況踏まえ

　来年１月４日に米ニューヨーク市で始まる核拡散防止条約（ＮＰＴ）再検討会議への岸田文雄首相の出席は見送られる公算が大きくなった。首相は新型コロナウイルス感染者が同市内で急増していることなどを踏まえ、訪問は難しいとの判断に傾いた。政府関係者が２６日、明らかにした。
　ＮＰＴ再検討会議は５年に１回開催される。首相は被爆地・広島選出で「核兵器のない世界」への取り組みをライフワークと公言。２３日の講演で「会議成功のために全力で取り組む」と語るなど、日本の首脳初の出席を探っていた。出席見送りの場合はビデオ演説などを検討する。（2021/12/26-16:21）

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is unlikely to attend in person a review conference on the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, starting Jan. 4 in New York, government sources said Sunday.
   Kishida increasingly believe that it is difficult to visit New York mainly because novel coronavirus infection cases are surging in the city, according to the sources.
   An NPT review conference is held every five years.
   The Japanese leader, who took office in early October, has pledged to work on realizing a world without nuclear weapons. In a lecture meeting Thursday, Kishida said that he will do his best for the success of the upcoming meeting, indicating his eagerness to become the first Japanese prime minister to take part in an NPT review conference.
   Kishida has been elected to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, from a constituency comprising parts of the western city of Hiroshima, which was flattened by the U.S. atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing days of World War II.