Nuclear Free World Policy
These countries are weary of nuclear weapons’ deployment above everything else. Although 8 states are exempted from ban on nuclear weapons, 5 nations retain a de jure status of a “nuclear weapon state.” These states are the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the People’s Republic of China, France and Russia—all of whom had already tested nuclear weapons before the NPT was signed. NWS’s right to possess a nuclear arsenal is countered by Article VI of the treaty, which says that they have a legal obligation to eventually disarm. They also criticized NWS countries for failing to meet their obligation to disarm, in addition to criticizing the 3 states non-signatory nuclear weapons-capable states (which are considered de facto nuclear weapons states). This was stated in point 4 of the Joint Declaration of 1998:
U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan
In December 2015 the United States Government acknowledged officially for the first time that it had stored nuclear weapons in Okinawa prior to 1972. That U.S. nuclear weapons had been located in Okinawa had long been an open secret. The fact had been widely understood or strongly speculated since the 1960s and was subsequently revealed by the U.S. military in apparently unnoticed photographs of nuclear weapons and delivery systems on Okinawa that were declassified and released to the U.S. National Archives in 1990.