Abe extends Pearl Harbor condolences

He forgoes Japan apology, joins Obama at memorial

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hugs Pearl Harbor survivor Everett Hyland after speaking Tuesday at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam near the USS Arizona Memorial.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hugs Pearl Harbor survivor Everett Hyland after speaking Tuesday at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam near the USS Arizona Memorial.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii -- The leaders of Japan and the United States took to the hallowed waters of Pearl Harbor on Tuesday, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not apologize but conceded that Japan "must never repeat the horrors of war again."

Seventy-five years after Japan's attack sent the U.S. marching into World War II, Abe and President Barack Obama peered down at the rusting wreckage of the USS Arizona, clearly visible in the teal water. More than 1,000 U.S. war dead remain entombed in the submerged ship, and in a show of respect, Obama and Abe dropped purple petals into the water and stood in silence.

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AP

President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe take part Tuesday in a wreath-laying ceremony at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

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AP

Obama and Abe were taken to the memorial aboard the Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet Barge.

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AP

The two leaders paused after tossing flower petals into the wishing well at the memorial.

"As the prime minister of Japan, I offer my sincere and everlasting condolences to the souls of those who lost their lives here, as well as to the spirits of all the brave men and women whose lives were taken by a war that commenced in this very place," Abe said later at nearby Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Abe did not apologize for the Japanese attack. But his remarks were enough for Obama, who also declined to apologize seven months ago when he became America's first sitting president to visit Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb in a bid to end the war.

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Abe's condolences were satisfying enough, too, for Alfred Rodrigues, a U.S. Navy veteran who survived the attack. The 96-year-old said he had no hard feelings and added, "War is war."

"They were doing what they were supposed to do, and we were doing what we were supposed to do," Rodrigues said before the visit.

Abe, who became Japan's first leader to see Pearl Harbor with a U.S. president, said the visit "brought utter silence to me." His remarks capped a day that was planned by the U.S. and Japan to show a strong and growing alliance between former foes.

The leaders started with a formal talk at another nearby military base, in what the White House said was likely Obama's last meeting with a foreign leader before leaving office in January. It was a bookend of sorts for the president, who nearly eight years ago invited one of Abe's predecessors to be the first leader he hosted at the White House.

Obama, speaking after he and Abe laid green-and-peach wreaths at the memorial, called the harbor a sacred place and said that "even the deepest wounds of war can give way to friendship and lasting peace." It's a notion Obama tried throughout his presidency to put into practice, as he reached out to former adversaries Iran, Burma and Cuba.

"As we lay a wreath or toss flowers into waters that still weep, we think of the more than 2,400 American patriots, fathers and husbands, wives and daughters, manning heaven's rails for all eternity," Obama said.

Then the two leaders greeted Pearl Harbor survivors in the crowd. They shook hands with and hugged some of the men who fought in the Dec. 7, 1941, battle that President Franklin D. Roosevelt called a "date which will live in infamy."

Abe's visits

After arriving on the island of Oahu on Monday morning, Abe visited the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, in which the remains of about 50,000 officers and soldiers -- including those who lost their lives during the attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy -- are buried.

The prime minister offered flowers and a moment of silence before signing his name in a visitors book.

At the facility, Abe also laid flowers at the grave of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, who had worked hard to promote the U.S.-Japan relationship until his death in December 2012.

The prime minister then visited a Japanese cemetery in Honolulu's Makiki district, which houses a memorial for Japanese emigrants to Hawaii and soldiers killed at Pearl Harbor.

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In those visits, Abe was accompanied by Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, Defense Minister Tomomi Inada and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, among others.

Japanese leaders have visited Pearl Harbor before, but Abe was the first to go to the memorial above the sunken USS Arizona, where a marbled wall lists the names of U.S. troops killed in the Japanese attack.

For Abe, it was an act of symbolic reciprocity, coming months after Obama and Abe visited Hiroshima together and renewed their calls for a nuclear-free future. Both governments maintain that the visits were separate and not contingent on each other.

The visit was not without political risk for Abe, given the Japanese people's long, emotional reckoning with their nation's aggression in the war, analysts said. Though the history books have largely deemed Pearl Harbor a surprise attack, Japan's government still insists that it had intended to give notice that it was declaring war and failed only because of "bureaucratic bungling."

"There's this sense of guilt, if you like, among Japanese, this 'Pearl Harbor syndrome,' that we did something very unfair," said Tamaki Tsukada of the Japanese Embassy in Washington. He said he believed that Abe's visit would "absolve that kind of complex that Japanese people have."

In the years after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. incarcerated about 120,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps before dropping atomic bombs in 1945 that killed about 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki.

The U.S. and Japan have built an alliance in the decades since the war that both sides say has grown during Obama's tenure, including strengthened military ties.

Since taking office in late 2012, Abe has sought to bind Japan even more tightly to the U.S. -- its sole military ally -- as China becomes more assertive over disputed territory.

The alliance has "never been stronger," Obama said.

Giving way to Trump

Obama and Abe met for the second time since Donald Trump won the presidential election last month, a victory that already has had ramifications for U.S.-Japan relations.

Trump has pledged to withdraw from an Asia-Pacific trade agreement that Japan saw as cementing the U.S. role in the region and has said he wants to charge Japan more for the presence of American troops on its soil.

Obama has sought to reassure world leaders that Trump will not upend longstanding U.S. norms and policies when he becomes president. During his visit to Hiroshima in May, Obama offered condolences for the Japanese who died after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on the city. He said the city offered a reminder of the need to reduce the stockpiles of nuclear weapons among countries that have them and to "stop the spread to new nations."

During his campaign, Trump suggested that Japan consider developing nuclear weapons to protect itself, contradicting longstanding U.S. policy. He subsequently denied making the remark. Last week, the president-elect said the U.S. should expand its nuclear capability, a move that would reverse decades of cuts in the nation's atomic weaponry.

Abe was the first world leader to meet with Trump after his election, and the prime minister has mounted a bid to preserve U.S. support for the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

After his meeting last month with Trump, Abe described the president-elect as "a leader we can trust." Abe has said he's seeking a second meeting as soon as possible after Trump's inauguration.

Information for this article was contributed by Josh Lederman, Caleb Jones, Brian Skoloff and Mari Yamaguchi of The Associated Press; by Hiroshi Tajima and Mai Fukuda of The Japan News; and by Toluse Olorunnipa, Isabel Reynolds and Justin Sink of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 12/28/2016

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