Dialoguepk

26 May 2016 Author: Christian Wirth, Tohoku University At the end of this month President Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima . The momentous visit is planned around Obama’s trip to nearby Ise-Shima for the G7 Summit. In light of the United States’ consistent pressure on Tokyo and Seoul to bury their own historical debate over the so-called ‘comfort women’ , as well as Obama’s initiative to abolish the use of nuclear weapons, this visit is long overdue. The initial steps towards this visit began back in September 2008, when Nancy Pelosi went to Hiroshima in her role as Speaker of the House of Representatives. In August 2010, then US Ambassador to Japan John Roos made the first official visit by a US government representative. And, in April 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry became the highest ranking US government representative to visit when he attended the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on the sidelines of the G7 Foreig