Japan is not expecting U.S. President Joe Biden to issue a separate message on nuclear disarmament when he travels to Hiroshima next week to take part in this year's summit of the Group of Seven advanced economies, the country's envoy to the United States said Tuesday.
Ambassador Koji Tomita, who briefed reporters in Washington on the three-day summit from May 19, said Japan instead seeks for the group to release a strong collective message, as "77 years of human efforts not to resort to nuclear weapons must not be wasted."
When asked about the matter at the National Press Club, Tomita said Japan is not trying to "ask President Biden to come up with a specific message," noting that his trip to the city, devastated by a U.S. atomic bombing in 1945, is not for bilateral engagement but to attend the multilateral meeting.
Biden, who announced his re-election bid in late April, will become the second sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima after Barack Obama, who delivered a 17-minute speech renewing his pledge for a world without nuclear weapons in the western Japanese city in 2016.
The ambassador said Japan wants the message issued by the G-7 to be as "concrete as possible," while acknowledging it "remains very difficult" for major countries to advance efforts toward global nuclear disarmament under current circumstances, citing security challenges such as Russia's war in Ukraine.
Nonetheless, he said it is incumbent upon Japan, the only county to have suffered the tragedy of nuclear attacks, to lead the group to that end.
Obama visited Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park in May of 2016 after attending that year's G-7 summit in central Japan. Accompanied by then Japanese leader Shinzo Abe, he also laid a wreath at the cenotaph for victims of the bombing, toured the nearby museum, met some Japanese survivors and gave a hug to one of them.
In his speech, Obama did not offer any new proposals for concrete action, but underscored that "among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them."
"We may not realize this goal in my lifetime, but persistent effort can roll back the possibility of catastrophe," he said.
On Tuesday, the White House said Biden will make a "historic stop" in Papua New Guinea while traveling from Hiroshima to a summit of the Quad group involving the leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the United States in Sydney.
It will be the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to the Pacific country. The plan was announced as Biden's administration seeks to forge closer ties with Pacific island nations as a counter to China's rising influence.
Biden will meet Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape and other leaders in the region to follow up on the first-ever U.S.-Pacific Island Summit, which the president hosted in September last year in Washington, according to White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.
She said in a statement that the leaders will discuss ways to tackle various challenges facing the region, including climate change, protection of maritime resources and achieving inclusive economic growth.
