The Hiroshima Declaration issued by the Group of Seven foreign ministers this week comes amid a global lack of momentum for getting rid of nuclear weapons. Given the dismal situation surrounding such efforts, it will be all the more important for both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons state to push harder for nuclear disarmament and abolition of such weapons by taking a cue from the declaration. The leaders of the United States and Japan should realize that their countries bear an especially heavy responsibility in these efforts — as the first country to use nuclear weapons and the first nation to experience nuclear attacks.

The declaration won't bring about immediate results but it does have a symbolic importance of being issued by the G-7 foreign ministers in Hiroshima, which suffered the calamity of the first nuclear attack in human history in 1945. The occasion marked the first visit to Hiroshima by the foreign ministers of nuclear weapons powers.

The G-7 foreign ministers reaffirmed their commitment "to creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons in a way that promotes international stability" and called on world leaders to visit Hiroshima. They also urged all states to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without delay and the Conference on Disarmament to begin talks on a treaty banning production of fissile materials for use in nuclear weapons — two steps that are believed to play important roles in global efforts to reduce and eventually abolish nuclear weapons. It is meaningful that the U.S., which has yet to ratify the CTBT, joined the call for the treaty's early ratification. The U.S. must take the call seriously and ratify the treaty as soon as possible, which would serve as a powerful vehicle for putting the treaty into force.