Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Japan's Abe to Visit Pearl Harbor

by VOA News

   Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday he will visit Pearl
   Harbor later this month, the first time a Japanese leader has visited
   the U.S. naval base Tokyo bombed in a 1941 clandestine attack that
   precipitated the American entry into World War II.

   Abe, speaking two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack, said
   he would visit the Pearl Harbor memorial with U.S. President Barack
   Obama to pray for the war dead, while also holding a final summit with
   the American leader before Obama leaves office next month.

   Abe's visit to Hawaii on December 26 and 27 comes six months after
   Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the memorial at
   Hiroshima, the Japanese city where the U.S. detonated the world's first
   atomic bomb at the end of the war in 1945.

   "We must never repeat the tragedy of the war," Abe said. "I would like
   to send this commitment. At the same time, I would like to send a
   message of reconciliation between Japan and the U.S."

   The White House said "the two leaders' visit will showcase the power of
   reconciliation that has turned former adversaries into the closest of
   allies, united by common interests and shared values."

   More than 2,300 U.S. servicemen were killed in the Japanese aerial
   attack at Pearl Harbor, sinking the USS Arizona battleship, while
   damaging or destroying 20 other ships and 164 planes. The attack will
   be marked Wednesday by a remembrance ceremony and a moment of silence
   at 7:55 a.m., when the Japanese planes first struck their targets.

   Three and a half years later, the world war came to an end after the
   U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 210,000
   people in the two attacks.

   Abe was the first foreign leader to meet with U.S. President-elect
   Donald Trump, talking with him on a visit to New York last month.

   Some material for this report came from AP and AFP.