Hiroshima, April 14 (RHC)-- Survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing and residents of Hiroshima say they want to see efforts toward abolition of nuclear weapons, not an apology, from U.S. President Barack Obama.
The remarks were made after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry paid a visit to Hiroshima’s atomic bomb museum, in advance of a possible visit by President Barack Obama. Rumors are flying that Obama might visit the museum next month when he's in Japan for a G-7 summit meeting.
Earlier, the U.S. secretary of state said that he hadn't travelled to Japan to apologize for the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Hiroshi Harada, a former head of the atomic bomb museum, said: "I would want to accept his (Obama's) visit with hopes that it will lead to the next action for the abolition of nuclear weapons."
Harada, who was 6-years-old at the time of the atomic bombing, noted: “At that moment, we saw people burned black, having their skin melted or limbs blown apart. It's not likely that survivors would be in a cheery, welcoming mood.”
On August 9, 1945, a U.S. warplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing thousands of people instantly and about 140,000 by the end of that year. It was shortly followed by another U.S. atomic bombing on the port city of Nagasaki, killing about 70,000 people three days later.
