During the first joint visit by US and Japanese leaders, Obama says Abe’s presence is a reminder that wars can end and enemies can become allies

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Barack Obama said Shinzo Abe’s visit to Pearl Harbor was a “historic gesture” that showed the power of reconciliation.

Speaking at Pearl Harbor alongside the Japanese prime minister on Tuesday afternoon, during the first joint visit by US and Japanese leaders, Obama said Abe’s presence was a reminder that wars could end and enemies could become allies.

'Alliance of hope': US and Japan leaders meet for historic Pearl Harbor first Read more

It showed that “the fruits of peace always outweigh the plunder of war”, the US president said.

Obama said that the US-Japan relationship was now a cornerstone of peace in the world and that the alliance had never been stronger.



Abe offered “sincere and everlasting condolences” to the US service members who died when his country attacked Pearl Harbor, sending the US into the second world war.



Japanese leaders have visited Pearl Harbor before, but Abe is the first Japanese leader to visit the USS Arizona Memorial, honoring those who died in Pearl Harbor during the second world war, and the first to visit Pearl Harbor with a US president.

The prime minister did not apologize for the attack but said: “We must never repeat the horrors of war again.” He paid tribute to the “brave men and women” who were killed, saying it was important to show respect even to a former enemy.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Barack Obama and Shinzo Abe laid wreaths and tossed flower petals into the water aboard the USS Arizona Memorial to honor those who died at Pearl Harbor. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The two world leaders laid wreaths and tossed flower petals into the water aboard the USS Arizona Memorial to honor those who died at Pearl Harbor. The rusting wreckage of the sunken ship where more than 1,000 American service members are entombed can be seen just under the water’s surface.

Obama and Abe closed their eyes and stood silently for a few moments before concluding their visit to the memorial. Then they boarded a boat to take them to nearby Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, where they spoke.

The two leaders greeted survivors in the crowd, shaking hands and hugging some of the men who fought in the 7 December 1941 battle.

The visit, Japan’s government has said, is powerful proof that the former enemies have transcended the recriminatory impulses that weighed down relations after the war.

It is a bookend of sorts for the president, who nearly eight years ago invited Abe’s predecessor to be the first leader he hosted at the White House.

For Abe, it is an act of symbolic reciprocity, coming six months after Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima in Japan, where the US dropped an atomic bomb in hopes of ending the war it entered after Pearl Harbor.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shinzo Abe smiles after giving a hug to a Pearl Harbor survivor, Everett Hyland. Photograph: Hugh Gentry/Reuters

“This visit, and the president’s visit to Hiroshima earlier this year, would not have been possible eight years ago,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, Obama’s top Asia adviser in the White House. “That we are here today is the result of years of efforts at all levels of our government and societies, which has allowed us to jointly and directly deal with even the most sensitive aspects of our shared history.”



In the years after Japan’s attack, the US incarcerated about 120,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps before dropping atomic bombs in 1945 that killed about 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.

Obama did not apologize at Hiroshima in May, a visit that he and Abe used to emphasize their elusive aspirations for a nuclear-free future. Nor did Abe on Tuesday.

No apology needed, said 96-year-old Alfred Rodrigues, a US navy veteran who survived what the then president, Franklin D Roosevelt, called a “date which will live in infamy”.

“War is war,” Rodrigues said as he looked at old photos of his military service. “They were doing what they were supposed to do, and we were doing what we were supposed to do.”

Since the war, the US and Japan have built a powerful alliance that both sides say has grown during Obama’s tenure, including strengthened military ties. Both Obama and Abe were driving forces behind the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a sweeping free trade deal now on hold due to staunch opposition by Congress and President-elect Donald Trump.