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U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, where he reiterated his call for a “world without nuclear weapons” during his speech at the Peace Memorial Park in the city devastated by the world’s first atomic bomb 71 years ago.
“Among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them,” Obama said in front of an audience of some 100 people, including atomic-bomb survivors.
At least 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and another 74,000 three days later in a second bombing in Nagasaki.U.S. President first visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum before walking to the Peace Memorial Park, accompanied by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
We come to mourn the dead, Obama said after he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe each placed a wreath at the Peace Memorial.
Accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Obama laid a wreath at the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims before the speech. He also visited the Peace Memorial Museum, which displays a number of artifacts of the victims and other exhibits related to the Aug. 6, 1945, attack in the final stage of World War II.
Obama emphasized in his address that a nuclear weapon must not be used again, saying, “We’re not bound by our genetic codes to repeat the mistakes of the past,” but failed to present any new measure to further enhance nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.
During the 17-minute speech, Obama did not apologize — nor was he expected to — for the atomic bombings, which were authorized by wartime President Harry Truman. He also refrained from making remarks about the impression of the museum exhibiting various items belonging to victims of the nuclear attack, such as a charred tricycle, and images of burned bodies.
About why people come to Hiroshima, the site of the world’s first atomic bombing, he said, “We come to ponder the terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past. We come to mourn the dead.”
In addition to “over 100,000 Japanese men, women and children” who died, Obama referred to “thousands of Koreans” and “a dozen Americans” who were killed in the attack.
After delivering the speech, Obama walked over to Sunao Tsuboi, a 91-year-old leader of the Japan Confederation of A- and H- Bomb Sufferers Organizations and had a conversation with him.
Kyodo-