Kerry visits Hiroshima memorial 7 decades after atomic bomb

Associated Press

HIROSHIMA, JAPAN

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived at the memorial to Hiroshima’s atomic bombing, becoming the most-senior American official to visit the site.

Kerry arrived with other foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized nations today.

They are taking a tour of the Peace Memorial Park and Museum in the city where 140,000 Japanese died from the first of two atomic bombs the U.S. dropped in 1945, in the final days of World War II.

A senior U.S. official traveling with Kerry said ahead of the tour that Kerry won’t apologize for America’s atomic bombing of Hiroshima when he visits the memorial.

Kerry planned to lay flowers, and was expected to express the sorrow that all feel upon reflection about the bombing – the first use of a nuclear weapon against an enemy in history – and use the occasion to promote President Barack Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free world. The official wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name on Kerry’s plans and demanded anonymity.

Shortly before the scheduled event, Kerry himself called it “a moment that I hope will underscore to the world the importance of peace and the importance of strong allies working together to make the world safer and, ultimately, we hope to be able to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction.”

“And while we will revisit the past and honor those who perished, this trip is not about the past,” he told Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, a Hiroshima native.