Obama’s press secretary Josh Earnest said it was “an entirely legitimate line of inquiry for historians” when asked why the White House had decided not to use his Hiroshima visit to issue an apology.
Advertisement
Barack Obama will become the first US President to visit Hiroshima in Japan later this month but he will not apologise for the United States’ dropping of an atomic bomb on the city at the end of World War Two, the White House said on Tuesday.
Why now? A previous visit by Secretary of State John Kerry last month offered some foreshadowing for a potential visit, but news of a confirmed trip also arrives as Obama has focused on developing better relations with Asian nations. “Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focussed on our shared future”, said Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications.
The visit to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park will occur after Obama attends a previously announced meeting of the Group of Seven leaders in Ise-Shima.
But the White House believed the time was right, in Obama’s final year, to make a grand symbolic statement toward the president’s disarmament goals that he announced during his first year in office. General Eisenhower who was commander of USA forces in Europe and who was also the president, after he succeeded Truman as president, said he was appalled at the use of the atomic bombs on Japan.
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui praised Obama’s plan to visit as a “bold decision based on conscience and rationality”, adding that he hopes Obama will have a chance to hear the survivors’ stories. FILE – In this May 25, 1984 file photo, guided by then-Hiroshima Mayor Takeshi Araki, former President Jimmy Carter carries a wreath to place at the memorial cenotaph, a monument that contains the names of those who d…
The president should “use the opportunity to map out concrete actions the United States and other countries can and will pursue to move closer to a world free of nuclear weapons”, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based nonprofit. We’re talking over 70 years ago.
Early in his presidency, Obama said he would be honored to make the trip, and the White House has said it often considered a visit on previous trips to Asia.
“The day has finally come”, Tsuboi told Japan’s NHK national television.
Mr. Trump has said he would rather allow Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear arsenals than having USA deployment in the region to provide them protection.
“We are not asking for an apology”, Tsuboi said.
WASHINGTON (AP) – “You can’t win them all” is a cliche that doesn’t seem to apply to this season’s unbeaten University of CT women’s basketball team, President Barack Obama said Tuesday as he welcomed the Huskies to the White House for the fourth consecutive year.
Terumi Tanaka, the general secretary of the Japanese Confederation of A- and H-Bombs Sufferers Organizations, said his members want Obama to state clearly his intention to eliminate nuclear weapons.
The president, Martin said, “will look insincere if his words espouse ridding the world of nuclear weapons while at the same time his administration continues its plan to spend a trillion dollars over thirty years to upgrade nuclear weapons”.
Advertisement
“I’m not sold yet”, she said in an interview.
