TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio and US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel are expected to visit Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park together, Japanese government sources have said.

The two countries are arranging such a visit for Saturday. They will make a final decision after examining the coronavirus situation as both Hiroshima and Tokyo are under a COVID-19 pre-emergency state.

Kishida, a member of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, is elected from a constituency in Hiroshima, one of the two cities attacked with US atomic bombs during World War II. His lifework is to realize a world without nuclear weapons.

Emanuel served as adviser to then US President Barack Obama between 2009 and 2010. Obama in 2016 became the first sitting US president to visit the western Japan city.

In a joint statement on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty issued last month, Tokyo and Washington said that political leaders around the world should visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the other atomic-bombed city.

JIJI Press