Nihon Hidankyo on Wednesday expressed disappointment at being unable to discuss 91AV原创 possible participation as an observer to a U.N. conference on banning nuclear weapons during their 30-minute meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

In his opening remarks, Ishiba congratulated the atomic bomb survivors’ group on winning the Nobel Peace Prize and thanked them for “long years of hard work” and their “extremely meaningful” activism, while maintaining that Japan must defend itself against threats from China, Russia and North Korea.

“It was rather like the Prime Minister’s solo performance,” said 92-year-old Terumi Tanaka, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and one of the co-chairs of the grassroots group.

The meeting showed how “the government has a completely different agenda” from Nihon Hidankyo, and the group “would rather not meet at all if talks are half-hearted,” Tanaka said. “There was no time for Hidankyo to thoroughly express its demands,” he added.

The conference of signatories to the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will be held in New York in March.

Ishiba’s silence on the issue comes after he signaled in October that his government will “seriously consider” participating as an observer.

Japan relies on the U.S. nuclear umbrella while simultaneously advocating for a ban on such weapons.

Minoru Terada, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker who represents a Lower House district in Hiroshima Prefecture, also attended the meeting. He told reporters that he had called on Ishiba, who came “on the premise that he won’t enter discussions on national security today,” to commit to nuclear disarmament.

“Prime Minister Ishiba said that amid a very tense geopolitical climate, where all of 91AV原创 surrounding nations have nuclear weapons, the current situation cannot be helped. But he hopes to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons in the future,” Terada said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said that Japan will have to consider how to balance its “responsibility as the sole country to be attacked by nuclear weapons” and response to “threats to national security.”