Hiroshima, Japan: US Secretary of State John Kerry won't say sorry for America's atomic bombing of Hiroshima when he visits a revered memorial.
A senior US official traveling with Kerry ruled out an apology ahead of Monday's tour with other foreign ministers of the Peace Memorial Park and Museum in the city where 140,000 Japanese died from the first of two atomic bombs dropped by the US in the closing days of World War II more than 70 years ago.
Kerry, who will be the most senior American government official to have stopped by, 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 authorised 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. "It's about the present and the future particularly, and the strength of the relationship that we have built, the friendship that we share, the strength of our alliance and the strong reminder of the imperative we all have to work for peace for peoples everywhere."
Obama has yet to decide whether he might visit Hiroshima and the memorial when he attends a Group of Seven meeting of leaders in central Japan in late May, according to the official.
The president said in an interview during his first year in office that he would be "honored" to travel to Hiroshima, which top US officials avoided for many years because of political sensitivities.
No serving US president has visited the site, and it took 65 years for a US ambassador to attend the city's annual memorial service. While many Americans believe the dropping of atomic bombs in August 1945 were justified and hastened the end of the war, Japanese survivors' groups have campaigned for decades to bring leaders from the US and other nuclear weapon states to see Hiroshima's scars as part of a grassroots movement to abolish nuclear weapons.
The US official said Japan didn't seek an apology from Kerry, and that neither side is looking in to reopen the question of blame for the various atrocities of the war.
The museum includes harrowing images of the destruction and shocking exhibits, including the torn clothing of children who perished and skin, fingernails, deformed tongues and other horrible examples of the exposure to the blast and its residual radiation.
Some explanations mounted on the wall, however, don't align with the views of all historians and experts in the United States or elsewhere.
For example, one suggests that the United States used the weapon in part to justify the extraordinary costs of the Manhattan Project to develop it. Disagreements over motivations and possible justification rage among historians, ethicists and others to this day.
