US President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One upon arrival at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, western Japan, on Thursday, en route to Hiroshima for the Group of Seven nations' summit that starts Friday. AP
US President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One upon arrival at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, western Japan, on Thursday, en route to Hiroshima for the Group of Seven nations' summit that starts Friday. AP
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said that President Joe Biden will not apologise for the United States’ use of the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II when he visits Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum as part of his trip for the G7 Summit.
Biden, who is currently en route to Hiroshima for the G7 Summit, is scheduled to visit the museum on Friday along with the other six G7 leaders and meet with survivors of the nuclear blast.
Addressing the reporters aboard Air Force One, Sullivan said the event Biden is attending at the museum would not be an appropriate occasion for such a gesture.
“The president won’t be making a statement at the Peace Memorial Park. He’ll be participating with the other G7 leaders in a wreath laying and a few other events, but this is not from his perspective, a bilateral moment,” an Independent report quoted Sullivan as saying, adding, Biden will attend “as one of the G7 leaders coming to pay respects”.
According to the Independent, some Japanese politicians have called for the US to offer an official apology for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, the White House said Barack Obama, the first US president to visit the memorial site, did not apologise for the use of nuclear weapons when he visited in 2016, and Biden will not do so either.
Sullivan said Biden would be doing so both out of respect for history and for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who entered Japanese politics as a member of the Japanese House of Representatives for Hiroshima’s First District.
It’s estimated that around 135,000 civilians were killed in by the atomic bombs used in 1945 with another 69,000 injured.
The Peace Memorial is the remains of the only building in Hiroshima to survive the nuclear blast.
The site includes memorials for the dead, the iconic bombed-out Peace Dome, and a museum on the bomb and its aftermath. The Peace Park is dedicated to the pursuit of peace and nuclear disarmament.
President Biden and Kishida are scheduled to hold a one-on-one meeting on Thursday evening shortly after the US president arrives in Hiroshima.
With inputs from agencies
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