Photo/Illutration The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (Jun Ueda)

Leaders of non-member nations invited to the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima later this month will also be given a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Among the nations whose leaders have been invited to attend the summit on May 19-21 are South Korea and India, a nuclear power.

The plans call for the leaders of the G-7 member nations to visit the museum on May 19.

However, the leaders of the eight invited nations--including Indonesia, Australia, the Cook Islands, Comoros, Brazil and Vietnam--might also be shown the museum likely on May 21, sources said.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida may even accompany the leaders when they tour the museum.

Another plan being considered is to have Kishida’s wife, Yuko, lead a tour of the museum comprising the partners of the G-7 leaders who come to Japan.

With working toward a world without nuclear weapons being one of the major themes of the G-7 summit, the hope is that showing the leaders the damage caused by such weapons will build more momentum for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum opened in 1955, 10 years after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It displays many heart-rending photos and personal effects of victims to show the extent of the carnage on Aug. 6, 1945.

Details are continuing to be ironed out about what parts of the museum would be shown to the leaders.

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