HIROSHIMA--Group of Seven leaders confronted the horrors of atomic warfare during a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on May 19, prompting several to comment that humanity must learn from the past if world peace is to be achieved.

The government kept a tight lid on the visit, and the few bits of information available generally came from those who met with the leaders.

Government officials were concerned that each of the G-7 leaders could face domestic ramifications if the media was permitted to cover the tour. For this reason, officials did not divulge which exhibits generated the most interest.

The tour took about 40 minutes compared with the 10 spent by U.S. President Barack Obama during his historic visit to the city in 2016.

Signing the visitors’ book at the museum, French President Emmanuel Macron wrote that the role of the G-7 was to promote peace with an obligation to pass down the words of victims of conflict.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted, “It’s important that we learn from the past.”

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, tweeted: “What happened in Hiroshima continues to haunt humanity. Here we remember the terrible cost of war. And we are reminded of our duty to preserve peace.”

However, U.S. President Joe Biden refrained from being drawn into moral arguments about the 1945 atomic bombing, a reflection of not only the political situation in the United States, but the difficult situation Washington faces in dealing with threats from Russia.

“With the U.S. presidential election coming up next year, there are elements in the United States who might use the museum visit to attack the Biden administration,” said a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official.

A senior official in the prime minister’s office disclosed that U.S. officials were very particular beforehand about which exhibits the president would see.

Like all postwar U.S. presidents, Biden had his hands tied when it came to speaking out on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima since the United States dropped the weapon that pulverized the western Japan city, making it the only nation to use such weapons in war. Russia could seize on any comment by Biden to bolster its threat to use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine.

Hiroshima Governor Hidehiko Yuzaki and Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui were among those who welcomed the leaders to the museum.

The other leaders were on the first floor of the east wing of the museum waiting for Biden’s arrival in the park. As he was the last to arrive, they gathered around a display of an origami crane that Obama made and donated to the museum.

Matsui reminded the G-7 leaders that countless children were orphaned by the bombing.

When Biden joined the group, they all went to an upper floor.

At his May 19 news conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida explained the background behind some of the items the leaders viewed at the museum.

“We made preparations so the leaders could see important displays based on our idea of wanting them to come into effective contact with the actual damage caused by the bomb,” Matsuno said. But he stopped short of providing specifics.

The leaders heard from Keiko Ogura, 85, a hibakusha atomic bomb survivor who has spent decades giving explanations in English to visitors to Hiroshima. Her audiences have ranged from world leaders to college students.

Ogura told the leaders she hoped they could experience what she went through, saw and felt on that fateful day 78 years ago.

She also talked about Sadako Sasaki, a household name in Japan, who was 2 years when the bomb was dropped. The girl died at the age of 12 while being treated in hospital for leukemia. Sadako passed the time by folding origami paper cranes as a prayer for recovery. Some of her origami works are displayed in the museum.

After her meeting with the leaders, Ogura met with reporters and said, “I felt we were a community that could think together” regarding the issue of nuclear weapons.

She expressed her hope that nuclear arsenals would be eliminated while there are still hibakusha, adding, “I hope they listen to the voice in their hearts and release a declaration from Hiroshima that takes a step toward” that goal.

(This article was compiled from reports by Anri Takahashi, Tomohiko Noto, Haruka Ono, Ryo Kiyomiya, Eri Niiya and Shohei Okada.)