Shinzo Abe to become first Japanese PM to visit Pearl Harbor

Japanese PM will visit Pearl Harbor this month with US President Barack Obama.

File photo

Washington: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Pearl Harbor this month with US President Barack Obama.

He will become his country`s first leader to travel to the site of the Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War Two.

"This will be a visit to console the souls of the victims," Abe told reporters on Monday. "I would like to show to the world the resolve that horrors of war should never be repeated," as per Reuters. 

"President Obama will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 27," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, as per PTI.

The December 26-27 visit will come seven months after Obama became the first serving US president to visit the Japanese city of Hiroshima, on which the United States dropped an atomic bomb in the closing days of the war, in 1945.

Abe will hold his final summit meeting with the outgoing US President during the trip to Hawaii.

Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor with torpedo planes, bombers and fighter planes on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, bombing the U.S. fleet moored there in the hope of destroying US power in the Pacific.

The attack led to the United States entering World War Two and the eventual defeat of Japan in August 1945, days after US atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Abe last year spoke to the US Congress and expressed "deep repentance" over Japan`s role in World War Two. 

On the other hand, in Hiroshima, Obama reiterated his commitment to pursuing a world without nuclear weapons, while avoiding any direct expression of remorse or apology for the US nuclear bombings. 

(With Agency inputs)