Japan hopes US president will visit A-bomb cities

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-28 10:18

TOKYO: Hopes are growing in Japan that Barack Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the only two cities ever devastated by atomic bombs. US officials, however, have not sent encouraging signals about such a visit.

An April speech Obama gave in Prague calling for a world free of nuclear weapons raised expectations, and winning the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month heightened them further.

"Many of the past Nobel Peace Laureates have visited (Japan's) ground zero," the Hiroshima-based Chugoku newspaper said in an editorial. "We urge him to go and see the place himself and renew his commitment to a nuclear-free world."

The US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people, and a second one on Nagasaki on August 9, killing 80,000. Six days later, Japan surrendered, ending World War II.

A visit could be politically fraught for any American president, and experts don't expect one soon. US officials say it is highly unlikely he will travel to either city during a two-day stop in Tokyo next month.

On Tuesday, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki went to the US Embassy in Tokyo to invite Obama to their cities before a UN review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty next May.

Japanese newspapers have published editorials, community groups have circulated petitions and students have written letters urging Obama to visit.

Fashion designer Issey Miyake, in a July op-ed piece in The New York Times, revealed he is a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb and called on Obama to visit the city.