TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The Japanese government will not participate in next month's meeting of signatories of the U.N. nuclear ban treaty in New York, Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said Tuesday, despite calls to attend given Japan's history as the only country to have experienced atomic bombings.

In announcing the decision to skip the five-day U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons talks from March 3, Iwaya told a press conference that nuclear deterrence under the Japan-U.S. alliance is "essential to defend our nation."

Apparently with China, North Korea and Russia in mind, Iwaya stressed that Japan faces "the most complicated and severe security environment" since the end of World War II, and attending the upcoming gathering could "send a wrong message and pose a problem" for the nation's security.

Japan, not a member of the ban treaty, has been under the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella in the postwar era and skipped the previous two meetings in 2022 and 2023. The third one will take place ahead of the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August.

Iwaya said the government had reviewed cases of nations taking part as observers in past treaty gatherings, including Germany, before concluding that attending is "not necessarily effective."

"We have to face the reality of the ongoing nuclear arms race," Iwaya said, adding that the treaty is "incompatible" with the concept of nuclear deterrence and unlikely to obtain consent from nuclear states.

He also said that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- which recognizes just Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States as nuclear-weapon states, and allows for the peaceful use of nuclear energy -- is the "only universal" pathway for nuclear disarmament.

Those five nuclear powers have not acceded to the nuclear ban pact, which was adopted in 2017 with the support of 122 countries and regions and entered into force in 2021 after 50 of them ratified it.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has pledged to work on realizing a "world without nuclear weapons," as his predecessor Fumio Kishida did, with the government's efforts attracting attention after Nihon Hidankyo won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

The Japanese atomic bomb survivors' group, as well as the city and prefectural governments of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has demanded that the government join the conference as an observer. Taking office in October, Ishiba had said he would "seriously think" about Japan's participation.

Terumi Tanaka, co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, also known as the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, called the latest decision "extremely regrettable."

In a statement, he urged the government to sign and ratify the pact "as soon as possible" and lead global efforts toward a nuclear-free world.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party led by Ishiba has also no plans to send its members to the New York conference, while its junior coalition partner, the Komeito party, known for its traditionally pacifist and dovish stance on security issues, is set to dispatch a lawmaker.

Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito said he sincerely regrets the government's decision and that his party will ask it for a "thorough explanation" for Japan's absence from the meeting.