TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met Wednesday with members of Nihon Hidankyo, Japan's leading group of atomic bomb survivors that received the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

During the meeting at the prime minister's office, Ishiba is expected to acknowledge the group's efforts toward creating a world free of nuclear weapons, with this year marking the 80th anniversary of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of World War II.

Nihon Hidankyo, also known as the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, has been calling on Japan to join the U.N. nuclear ban treaty or at least participate as an observer at a meeting of its signatories to be held in New York in March.

Ishiba has indicated that his government will consider Japan's participation as an observer.

The only nation to have been attacked with nuclear weapons, Japan relies on the U.S. nuclear umbrella for deterrence.

Neither Japan nor the United States has joined the treaty that took effect in 2021.