President Obama set to visit Hiroshima
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The US President will visit a memorial to the infamous atomic attack alongside Japan’s Shinzo Abe later this month.
White House officials say President Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima later this month.
He will visit the city with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on 27 May as part of his tenth trip to Asia since taking office.
The visit will bolster Mr Obama’s calls for de-nuclearisation and allow him to pay his respects to the 140,000 Japanese people killed in the bombing on 6 August, 1945.
The visit will bolster Mr Obama’s calls for de-nuclearisation and allow him to pay his respects to the 140,000 Japanese people killed in the bombing on 6 August, 1945.
Secretary of State John Kerry leaves a wreath at the memorial in April
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the visit would “highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”.
But the White House has ruled out Mr Obama apologising for the devastating atomic bombing.
In a separate blog, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said: “He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War Two.
“Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future.”
Last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited the memorial at the site of the bombing and Mr Obama has long been expected to go to the city on the sidelines of the G7 economic summit.
The US attacked Hiroshima in the final days of World War Two and many believe the bombing, along with that on the city of Nagasaki three days later, hastened the end of the war.
Japan surrendered on 15 August, 1945.
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