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The government Tuesday evening announced that U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima on May 27 after attending the G-7 Ise-Shima Summit meeting to be held on May 26 and 27.
Obama will become the first serving U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, the city once devastated by the atomic bombing in 1945.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters at the Prime Minister’s Office that he will accompany Obama to Hiroshima, and the two will together pay tribute to all the victims of the atomic bomb 71 years ago.
Asked if he would expect an apology from the president, Abe said, “Going to the city hit by an atomic bomb is a significant decision.”
Abe also pointed out that Obama has been calling for a world without nuclear weapons, saying, “Sending a message from Hiroshima itself must be meaningful for next generations.”
Earlier in April, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park with the other G-7 foreign ministers when he came to Japan.
The visit comes as part of a May 20-28 swing through Asia, which will include a Group of Seven summit in Japan and a visit to Vietnam. It will be the 10th trip to the region for Obama, who has tried to make a foreign policy "pivot" toward Asia.
On the final day of the summit in Japan, Obama and Abe will visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park near the spot where a US warplane dropped an atomic bomb 71 years ago at the end of World War Two. There have been concerns that a US presidential visit would be controversial in the United States if it were seen as an apology.
(APD News)
