Stopping short of apologizing for his country’s attack on Pearl Harbor 75 years ago, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered his “sincere and everlasting condolences” Tuesday to those who lost their lives.
The Japanese leader visited several memorials in Hawaii this week, including the USS Arizona with President Barack Obama, in what was termed a “reconciliation” three-quarters of a century after the fateful event that prompted the United States to enter World War II.
The Associated Press writes:
Seventy-five years after Japan’s surprise attack, Abe and President Barack Obama peered down Tuesday at the rusting wreckage of the USS Arizona, clearly visible in the tranquil, teal water. In a show of respect for the war dead, Obama and Abe dropped purple petals into the water and stood in silence. More than 1,000 U.S. war dead remain entombed in the submerged ship, which Japan struck as part of the devastating attack that killed more than 2,300 Americans and sent America marching into World War II. “As the prime minister of Japan, I offer my sincere and everlasting condolences to the souls of those who lost their lives here, as well as to the spirits of all the brave men and women whose lives were taken by a war that commenced in this very place,” Abe said later at nearby Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. That was the closest Abe would get to an apology for the attack. And it was enough for Obama, who also declined to apologize seven months ago when he became America’s first sitting president to visit Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb in a bid to end the war.
More from the AP here.
