President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima, Japan Friday, where he was to deliver remarks focusing on world peace and nuclear disarmament in the place where the first of two atomic bomb blasts accelerated the end of World War II.
The president met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The two leaders went inside for several minutes, during which Obama was expected to sign a guest book.
Obama was scheduled to place a wreath at the cenotaph, an arched monument in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park honoring the 140,000 people killed on Aug. 6, 1945.
Obama touched down in Hiroshima after completing talks with world leaders at an international summit in Shima, Japan.
White House aides have said that Obama will neither apologize for nor second-guess President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
In remarks to U.S. and Japanese troops at nearby Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Obama said the visit was "an opportunity to honor the memory of all those who were lost in World War II", as well as "a chance to pursue peace and security, a world where nuclear weapons would no longer be necessary."
The only other U.S. president to visit Hiroshima was Jimmy Carter, who did so in 1984, four years after being voted out of office.