Seven months after President Barack Obama traveled to Hiroshima to pay his respects to the thousands who died there, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will do the same at Pearl Harbor Tuesday alongside Obama.
The White House has said that the visit by the two leaders will “showcase the power of reconciliation” that turned one-time adversaries into “the closest of allies.”
The leaders will deliver remarks at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Tuesday and will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony aboard the USS Arizona Memorial.
Abe and Obama are also set to hold their last bilateral meeting together Tuesday, where they will discuss security, economic and global challenges, according to the White House.
The bilateral meeting is also expected to be one of Obama’s final meetings with a world leader.
Obama when he visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park did not apologize for the the United States dropping the nuclear bomb but instead came to honor the dead and call for a “world without nuclear weapons.”
Abe is also not expected to apologize for the attack on Pearl Harbor but said in a statement that the visit will be an opportunity to “soothe the souls of the victims.”
