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Japan’s Pearl Harbour visit ‘is to pay respects, not an apology’

TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s historic visit to Pearl Harbour later this month is for the purpose of remembering the victims of the Japanese attack 75 years ago, not for apologising for Japan’s actions, the government’s top spokesman said yesterday.

United States Defence Secretary Ashton Carter (left) met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo yesterday. Photo: EPA

United States Defence Secretary Ashton Carter (left) met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo yesterday. Photo: EPA

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TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s historic visit to Pearl Harbour later this month is for the purpose of remembering the victims of the Japanese attack 75 years ago, not for apologising for Japan’s actions, the government’s top spokesman said yesterday.

“This visit is an opportunity to remember those who died in war, demonstrate a resolve that the horrors of war must never be repeated, and at the same time send a message about the reconciliation between Japan and the United States,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.

Mr Abe will become the first serving Japanese Prime Minister to visit the site of the Japanese attack on Dec 7, 1941 that brought the US into World War II.

“The Prime Minister said everything there is to say about his feelings on the war in his statement in August last year to mark 70 years since the end of the war,” Mr Suga said.

Mr Abe’s visit to Hawaii on Dec 26 and 27 comes after Barack Obama in May became the first serving US President to visit Hiroshima, which was devastated by a US nuclear attack on Aug 6, 1945, in the final phase of World War II.

But Mr Suga said the Pearl Harbour visit is “not linked” to Mr Obama’s Hiroshima trip.

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, who met Mr Abe yesterday in Tokyo, said Mr Obama is “very much looking forward” to his (Mr Abe) visit to Pearl Harbour.

Mr Carter also confirmed the US plans to return to Japan roughly half of a large US military training area in Okinawa, thus reducing the amount of land occupied by US military facilities in the island prefecture where the bulk of the US bases in Japan are located.

The US is “prepared to make the largest land transfer in the history of our alliance, and I can confirm to you that we share your objective of completing that by Dec 22”, Mr Carter said.

Some 4,000ha of wooded land within the US military’s Northern Training Area in the villages of Kunigami and Higashi at the north end of the Okinawa Island is to be returned.

Yesterday morning, Mr Carter also inspected Japan’s largest naval vessel since World War II, the Izumo helicopter carrier, at the Maritime Self Defence Force’s Yokosuka base southwest of Tokyo.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said yesterday he will accompany Mr Abe to Hawaii, where the Japanese leader will also hold his final talks with Mr Obama, who leaves office in January.

Serving as the culmination of the two leaders’ efforts to build the Japan-US alliance over the past four years, the meeting will “show the big role that the Japan-US alliance plays for peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the international community”, Mr Kishida said.

The attacks on the Pearl Harbour naval base on the island of Oahu in Hawaii killed around 2,400 US military personnel and civilians. Several dozen Japanese personnel also died.

When asked what sort of message Japan and the US plan to send regarding the significance of Pearl Harbour, Mr Suga indicated it is up to historians to make such judgments. KYODO

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