TOKYO : An international committee led by Japan and Australia began a fourth round of talks on Sunday to draft recommendations on how to achieve a nuclear weapon-free world.

The International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) began the three days of talks in Hiroshima, site of a US atomic bombing at the end of World War II.

Former foreign ministers Gareth Evans of Australia and Yoriko Kawaguchi of Japan are leading the talks, joined by former US defence secretary William Perry and former Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, among others.

The group plans to issue recommendations in January ahead of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in Vienna.

The ICNND was launched in 2008 as a joint initiative between Japan and Australia. - AFP/ms