The conference is slated to be held in the city late next year; it will bring together international experts and former statesmen.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida is expected to make the proposal on Friday at a “Friends of the CTBT” foreign minister meeting, the source said.

The meeting’s location will be highly symbolic, in light of the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima’s bombing at the end of the Second World War.

The treaty has a special meaning for Kishida, a native of Hiroshima. In an article to the US Council on Foreign Relations journal Foreign Affairs this past August, Kishida wrote that he hopes “that in 2015, seven decades after the atomic bombings, the world can take decisive action to prevent history from repeating itself.”

The group of eminent persons was created by the CTBTO last year, and includes about 20 members. Its officially stated goal is to advance the Test Ban Treaty’s ratification, and to “support and complement efforts to promote the Treaty’s entry into force” , using members’ “expertise, experience and political standing.”