Published on May 27, 2016
President Obama calls for continued Russian sanctions at G7 summit
Barack Obama calls for a 'nuclear-free world' at G7 summit during Hiroshima visit
t was more than seven decades ago that the United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Japan, obliterating the city of Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people and ushering in a new era of nuclear conflict.
Today, another world precedent was set, as Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, side by side with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, the prime minister.
The historic visit was masterminded with military precision by Washington and Tokyo, in a bid to showcase the high-profile alliance between the two former enemy nations and reignite stalled efforts to abolish nuclear arms.
Mr Obama landed late afternoon at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, just outside Hiroshima, where he addressed staff gathered there, before making his way to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in the heart of the city.
Mr Obama told service personnel at the base, located around 25 miles from Hiroshima: “This is an opportunity to honour the memory of all who were lost during World War Two.
“It's a chance to reaffirm our commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a [world] where nuclear weapons would no longer be necessary.”
Upon arrival in the city, Mr Obama first visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, where he observed harrowing displays relating to the atomic bomb blast, including photographs of badly burned victims and remnants of stained clothes.
“We have know the agony of war,” he wrote in the guest book. “Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons.”
Accompanied by Mr Abe, the president then walked to Hiroshima Peace Park, where one by one, they laid a wreath in front of the curved concrete memorial cenotaph, with its eternal flame.
“We come to ponder the terrible force unleashed in the not so distant past,” said Mr Obama, in a 20-minute address.
“We come to mourn the dead, including over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children, thousands of Koreans and a dozen Americans held prisoner. Their souls speak to us.”
The president went on to meet with a number of survivors of the 1945 bombing, among them Sunao Tsuboi, 91, and Shigeaki Mori, 79, who shed tears as they embraced.
Mr Obama’s Hiroshima visit took place seven years after he made a rousing plea for the elimination of atomic weapons during a landmark speech in Prague which helped him to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The run-up to the visit was not without controversy, with critics highlighting so-called selective memory on both sides in relation to wartime events, as well as paradoxes in policies relying on nuclear deterrence while calling for an end to atomic arms.
Mr Obama has proposed a trillion-dollar overhaul of America’s nuclear weapons programme over the next three decades, upgrading its arsenal of ballistic missile submarines, land-based missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.
There has also been extensive debate surrounding whether Mr Obama should apologise for the Hiroshima bombing, or the attack on Nagasaki, where a second atomic bomb was dropped three days later.
Mr Obama announced before his visit that while he was in Hiroshima, he would honour all those who died in World war Two, but he would not apologise for the atomic bombings.
The majority of Americans have long viewed the two atomic bombings as necessary in bringing the war to an end and therefore saving even more lives, although this argument has been widely queried by historians. Most Japanese believe they were unjustified.
China and South Korea also expressed concerns that Mr Obama’s visit would reopen painful wounds, with both nations still regularly clashing with Japan over their respective interpretations of wartime events.
“It is worth focusing on Hiroshima, but it is even more important that we should not forget Nanjing,” Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, reportedly told media.
He was referring to the controversially disputed incident in 1937 during which China claims Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in its then capital Nanjing.
A postwar Allied tribunal concluded the death toll was around 142,000, however some conservative Japanese politicians deny the massacre took place at all, a claim that regularly enrages China.
He added: “The victims deserve sympathy, but the perpetrators can never escape their responsibility.”
Meanwhile, North Korea voiced its disapproval by issuing a statement containing angry rhetoric condemning the visit as the “childish” ploy of a “nuclear war fanatic”.
An opinion article by the Korea Central News Agency accused Mr Obama of being "seized with the wild ambition to dominate the world by dint of the US nuclear edge".
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