President Obama has touched down in Japan. While some groups have been calling for Obama to become the first American President to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki — the only two cities to be attacked using nuclear weapons — there are reports that instead President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will issue a joint statement sometime today calling for a nuclear weapons free world. According to one report:

In the statement, tentatively entitled the US-Japan joint initiative for a nuclear-free world, they would welcome rising international momentum toward arms reduction and non-proliferation, the Yomiuri said Thursday.

In their joint effort, the United States would seek to raise the global momentum, while Japan would push the message from its perspective as the only country to have been hit with atomic bombs.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion editorial by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) entitled “Why We Need to Test Nuclear Weapons.” If the title makes you grind your teeth, just wait until you read the whole piece, which ignores reality and spouts misleading statements about the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Sen. Kyl, we’ve had a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing since the early 1990s, and the public is just not going to support a return to nuclear testing. Ever.

For a well-reasoned explanation of why the US should ratify the CTBT, check out this OpEd from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has a good primer video on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty explaining what the treaty is and how US ratification of the treaty would enhance our national security. Click here to check it out!