Japan poll finds 70% support visit, only 2% object

TOKYO— Japanese are welcoming United States President Barack Obama’s decision to visit the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima, and those interviewed yesterday said they are not seeking an apology.

They expressed happiness that he plans to stop at the memorial for victims of the 1945 bombing after attending the annual Group of Seven summit in Japan. “I don’t live in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but I am overcome with emotion when I think that someone who wants to offer understanding is finally about to arrive,” said Ms Mieko Mori, a 74-year-old woman who stopped at a memorial in Tokyo to pray for the victims.

Mr Obama will become the first sitting American President to visit Hiroshima, a city almost entirely destroyed by a US atomic bomb in the final days of World War II. Some 140,000 people were killed, and others have endured after-effects to this day.

The US dropped a second devastating atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later. Japan announced it would surrender soon after, on Aug 15, 1945.

A poll released this week by national broadcaster NHK found that 70 per cent of Japanese want Mr Obama to visit Hiroshima, and only 2 per cent were opposed.

“I hear America is still divided over atomic bombings, but it’s been almost 71 years since the war ended, and I think it’s about time Obama should be able to visit Hiroshima,” said Mr Kohachiro Hayashi, who was reading a newspaper at a Tokyo park.

“He wouldn’t have been able to come in the middle of his term, but now it’s almost the end, so it’s like now or never,” said the retired teacher.

Mr Hayashi, 59, said if Japan were to ask for an apology, that would only cause an endless and fruitless debate over who should take the blame for various wartime acts.

Another retired teacher said it would be rude to demand an apology.

“Japan was also trying to develop nuclear weapons,” Mr Takatsugu Sakamoto, 80, said by telephone from Nishinomiya in Osaka prefecture. “Americans were just faster. If Japan hadn’t been trying, then it might make sense. And so to those who are demanding an apology, my response is: What in the world are you saying? Mr Obama doesn’t need to apologise.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he welcomes the US President’s visit to the Japanese city “from the bottom of my heart”.

“I believe that President Obama making a trip to Hiroshima, seeing the reality of the consequences of atomic bombings and expressing his feeling to the world, will be a big force toward a world without nuclear weapons,” Mr Abe told reporters on Tuesday, shortly after the visit was announced. AGENCIES