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Japan PM to visit Pearl Harbor with Barack Obama Japan PM to visit Pearl Harbor with Barack Obama
(about 1 hour later)
Shinzo Abe and Barack Obama will visit Pearl Harbor together this month as the Japanese prime minister visits Hawaii for talks with the US president. Shinzo Abe will later this month become the first Japanese prime minister to visit Pearl Harbor, the scene of a devastating attack by Japanese planes 75 years ago that killed more than 2,400 US servicemen and civilians and triggered America’s entry into the second world war.
Abe, who will be in Hawaii on 26 and 27 December, will become the first Japanese leader to visit the site of the surprise Japanese attack on 7 December 1941 that began the second world war in the Pacific. Abe, who has been considering a visit to the site for more than a year, will hold talks with Barack Obama in his home state of Hawaii on 26-27 December, seven months after he became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima.
The Hawaii visit comes after Obama’s May trip to Hiroshima, the Japanese city where a US plane dropped the world’s first atom bomb towards the end of the conflict. Nagasaki was bombed several days later. On Monday, Abe said he and Obama would visit Pearl Harbor together to “console the souls of the victims”. “I would like to show to the world the resolve that horrors of war should never be repeated,” he added.
Obama gave a speech that, although it offered no apology, was generally well received in Japan as it focused on the suffering of the atomic bomb victims. The White House confirmed the meeting, saying the two leaders’ visit would “showcase the power of reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of allies, united by common interests and shared values”.
On 6 August 1945, Hiroshima was attacked and 140,000 people died in the immediate blast or later from radiation exposure. Days later another bomb exploded above Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people. Abe praised Obama’s Hiroshima address in late May before a cenotaph to the 140,000 victims of the US nuclear attack on 6 August 1945. Obama met survivors of the attack and visited the city’s peace museum, but did not offer an apology or comment on the decision to bomb Hiroshima or Nagasaki three days later.
On Monday Abe hailed Obama’s speech at a cenotaph in Hiroshima as a handful of surviving victims looked on. Obama’s “message towards a nuclear-free world during his visit to Hiroshima remains etched into Japanese hearts”, Abe said. Obama’s words remained “etched into Japanese hearts”, Abe said, adding that he intended to use their meeting “to send a message to the world that we will further strengthen and maintain our alliance towards the future”.
“I’d like to make it [meeting Obama] an opportunity to send a message to the world that we will further strengthen and maintain our alliance towards the future,” he said. “And at the same time, I want to make it an opportunity to signal the value of Japan-US reconciliation.” He added: “At the same time, I want to use it as an opportunity to signal the value of Japan-US reconciliation.”
Obama’s trip had sparked speculation that Abe could visit Pearl Harbor in response, though the government previously denied that was under consideration. Speculation that Abe would go to Pearl Harbor rose after his wife, Akie, visited the site in August and posted on Facebook that she had offered flowers and prayers at the USS Arizona memorial.
Abe’s wife, Akie, visited Pearl Harbor in August and said on Facebook that she had offered flowers and prayers at the USS Arizona memorial. Abe said he and Obama had taken the decision to visit the site together during a meeting on the sidelines of last month’s Apec summit in Lima, Peru.
On the day of the bombing 75 years ago, Japanese planes swept low over the US naval base, killing more than 2,400 American troops and civilians. Japan’s surprise attack on the US Pacific fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941 prompted the US entry into the European and Pacific theatres of the second world war. By the end of the two-hour bombardment, Japanese torpedo planes, bombers and fighters had sunk 20 ships and destroyed 164 aircraft.
The two-hour bombardment of the US Pacific Fleet at anchor sank or damaged about 20 ships and destroyed 164 planes. The then president, Franklin Roosevelt, declared that the date would “live in infamy”. Abe’s visit will be deeply symbolic. Described by former president Franklin D Roosevelt as “a date which will live in infamy”, Pearl Harbor arouses the same strong emotions among many Americans as the country’s costlier battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
Abe’s gesture is likely to anger fellow conservatives at home who believe Japan should stop apologising for its actions during the war. Abe, though widely regarded as a nationalist, has adopted a more conciliatory approach. Last year, on the 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat, he expressed “deepest remorse” and “sincere condolences” to the country’s wartime victims, but stopped short of issuing a fresh apology.
Some Japanese social media users reacted positively to Abe’s surprise announcement on Monday. “I think it’s a good thing,” said @CNBLUE—6569 on Twitter. “After seeing President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, I felt strongly that I wanted a Japanese prime minister to visit Pearl Harbor.”
Another Twitter user wrote: “President Obama came to Hiroshima so prime minister Abe should go to Pearl Harbor. I think Abe made a really good decision.”
The US will mark the Pearl Harbor anniversary on Wednesday with a remembrance ceremony and a moment of silence at 7:55am, the time Japanese planes struck their first target.