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Barack
Obama has arrived in Hiroshima to become the first serving US president
to visit the Japanese city since the 1945 nuclear bombing.
Mr Obama flew into the Iwakuni US base nearby, after leaving the G7 summit.
He
said his visit was "a testament to how even the most painful of divides
can be bridged". But he also says he will not be apologising for the
attack.
At least 140,000 people died in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, in what was the world's first nuclear bombing.
Two days later a second nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing another 74,000.
'Best of friends'
Television footage has shown Mr Obama arriving and entering the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
Mr
Obama earlier told service personnel at the Iwakuni Marine Corp base,
some 40km (25 miles) from Hiroshima: "This is an opportunity to honour
the memory of all who were lost during World War Two.
"It's a
chance to reaffirm our commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a
[world] where nuclear weapons would no longer be necessary."
Mr
Obama praised the US-Japan alliance as "one of the strongest in the
world", with his visit showing how "two nations, former adversaries,
cannot just become partners, but become the best of friends".
The bomb that changed the world
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- When time stood still: a survivor's story
- Does Hiroshima even want an apology?
- One girl's story of Hiroshima
- Was it right to bomb Hiroshima?
Mr Obama will lay a wreath at the
cenotaph, where an eternal flame remembers Hiroshima's dead. He will be
joined by bomb survivors living in the now thriving city.
Many in
the US believe the use of the nuclear bomb, though devastating, was
right, because it forced Japan to surrender, bringing an end to World
War Two.
The daughter of one survivor, who was visiting the memorial on Friday, said the suffering had "carried on over the generations".
"That is what I want President Obama to know," Han
Jeong-soon, 58, told the Associated Press. "I want him to understand our
sufferings."
Seiki Sato, whose father was orphaned by the bomb,
told the New York Times: "We Japanese did terrible, terrible things all
over Asia. That is true. And we Japanese should say we are sorry because
we are so ashamed, and we have not apologised sincerely to all these
Asian countries. But the dropping of the atomic bomb was completely
evil."
'Just listen' - Japan's media on the visit
The Chugoku Shimbun
urges Mr Obama to "hear the voices of Hiroshima". "The people of
Hiroshima will be watching the president closely, eyeing to what extent
he is truly resolved to advance the abolition of nuclear arms," it said.
The Asahi Shimbun
carries an article saying Mr Obama's "gestures will shape the visit",
with the "most powerful gesture" being to "just listen to the bomb
victims' memories of suffering and activism".
The Japan Times
says: "To truly pay homage to those whose lives were lost or
irrevocably altered by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, Obama's
visit must galvanise the international community to move without delay
toward a world free of nuclear weapons. The fact that these weapons have
not been used over the past 70 years does not guarantee a risk-free
future for our children."
The BBC's
John Sudworth in Hiroshima says there is likely a strategic purpose to
the visit, as a symbol of the deepening alliance between Washington and
Tokyo in a region wary of China's rising military might.
Mr Obama
referred to this in his speech at the base, saying: "As president, I
made sure that the United States is leading again in the Asia Pacific,
because this region is vital."
Jimmy Carter has visited Hiroshima, but after the end of his presidency.
A US ambassador attended the annual commemoration for the first time in 2010.
Seventy years since Hiroshima
- The bomb was nicknamed "Little Boy" and was thought to have the explosive force of 20,000 tonnes of TNT
- Paul Tibbets, a 30-year-old colonel from Illinois, led the mission to drop the atomic bomb on Japan
- The Enola Gay, the plane which dropped the bomb, was named in tribute to Col Tibbets' mother
- The final target was decided less than an hour before the bomb was dropped. The good weather conditions over Hiroshima sealed the city's fate
- On detonation, the temperature at the burst-point of the bomb was several million degrees. Thousands of people on the ground were killed or injured instantly
The hours before the bomb was dropped
The 'sanitised narrative' of Hiroshima bombing
In pictures: The first atomic bomb
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