YOKOHAMA, Aug. 2 Kyodo -- The Japan Congress Against A and H Bombs (Gensuikin) on Friday began an international conference in Yokohama focusing on U.S. nuclear policies and relations between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.

In the one-day conference at Yokohama Symposia in Naka Ward, U.S. peace activist Kevin Martin is to discuss the nuclear policy of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the peace movement in the country, congress organizers said.

David Knight, a British antinuclear activist, will present a European view on Bush's nuclear policy.

Mitsuru Kurosawa, professor of international public policy at Osaka School of International Public Policy, is expected to discuss the Japanese government's response to the U.S. nuclear policy.

In the afternoon session, Achin Vanaik, an Indian antinuclear activist, will deliver a speech on the current situation of nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan.

Gensuikin will also host a six-day series of conferences commemorating the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the two cities on Aug. 4-9.

Gensuikin is backed by the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, the Social Democratic Party and the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), Japan's largest labor group.

Meanwhile, another antinuclear group, the Japan Council Against A and H Bombs (Gensuikyo), backed by the Japanese Communist Party, is expected to hold a series of conferences from Aug. 2 through 9, starting in Hiroshima and later in Nagasaki.