WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama will travel to Hiroshima this month in the first visit by a sitting American president to the site where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb.
The White House says Obama will visit along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a previously scheduled visit to Japan.
Obama’s visit will bolster his call for denuclearization and honor victims of the bombing that killed 140,000 Japanese on Aug. 6, 1945.
The president’s visit had long been anticipated. Last month, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the memorial to the Hiroshima bombing.
The White House has ruled out the possibility that Obama will apologize for the bombing of Hiroshima.
Obama will be in Japan to attend a Group of 7 economic summit.