Tokyo: Barack Obama is to visit Hiroshima this May — the first serving US president to travel to the Japanese city which was the target of a US nuclear attack in 1945.
The visit will be part of an Asian trip from May 21-28 that will also take him to Vietnam, BBC reported.
The Hiroshima bombing on August 6, 1945 killed 140,000 people. Along with a second bombing on Nagasaki, it is credited with ending World War II.
Jimmy Carter visited Hiroshima, but after the end of his presidency.
A statement from Obama’s press secretary read: “The President will make an historic visit to Hiroshima with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to highlight his continued commitment to pursuing peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons.”
The president’s communications adviser, Ben Rhodes, said Obama would not revisit the use of the atomic bomb in World War Two but would “offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future”.
Obama will also take part in the G7 summit in Japan’s Ise-Shima peninsula.
–IANS