THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
December 21, 2022 at 13:30 JST
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, left, meets U.S. President Joe Biden on Nov. 13 in Phnom Penh. (Provided by the Cabinet Public Relations Office)
U.S. President Joe Biden is hoping to visit Nagasaki in May in what would be a historic occasion for the atomic-bombed city, according to multiple Japanese government sources.
If the visit comes to fruition, it will mark the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited Nagasaki, site of the the second atomic bombing on Aug. 9, 1945.
Biden is scheduled to attend the Group of Seven Hiroshima Summit, scheduled from May 19 to 21.
The U.S. side has proposed that Biden’s trip to Nagasaki come before or after the summit, the sources said.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said “a world without nuclear weapons” will be one of the major items on the agenda at the summit, held at one of the 1945 atomic bombing sites.
Biden is known as being a devout Catholic, and the U.S. proposal includes a visit to the Urakami Cathedral, which was destroyed by the atomic bomb and was later rebuilt.
Both governments will begin working through the details of the proposal.
Barack Obama was the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima in 2016, the site of the first atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945. Kishida was foreign minister at the time and worked hard to make the visit possible.
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