Japan on Thursday welcomed the United States' decision to send its ambassador in Tokyo to a ceremony next week marking 65 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
John Roos will become the first official to represent the United States at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on August 6, "to express respect for all of the victims of World War II," said the US State Department.
"The government of Japan welcomes" the decision, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku told reporters.
"It will be an opportunity for him to deepen his understanding of Japan's strong desire of never repeating the horror of the atomic bombings," said the top government spokesman.
Tokyo had often asked Washington to send an envoy to the annual ceremony.
Roos is expected to lay a floral wreath on the 65th anniversary of the World War II bombing that helped force Japan's surrender, reports said.
The United States has never apologised for the mass killing and US domestic public opinion holds that it was necessary to end the war.
Japan is the only nation to have been attacked with atomic bombs.
More than 140,000 people were killed instantly in Hiroshima or died in the days and weeks after the US attack. Three days later a US plane dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people.
Akihiro Takahashi, former director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, told public broadcaster NHK: "I feel hatred (toward the United States) as an atomic bomb survivor, but you can't erase hatred with hatred.
"I don't say the ambassador ought to apologise in front of the cenotaph (for atomic bomb victims), but I want him to pray for the dead in a pious manner. I want him to pledge nuclear abolition."
related report
UN chief to attend Hiroshima, Nagasaki ceremonies
UN chief Ban Ki-moon will visit Japan next week to meet with Prime Minister Naoto Kan and attend ceremonies commemorating the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, his press office said Thursday.
Ban's first stop will be Tokyo where he plans to confer with Kan and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada before heading to Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
The US atomic bombings of the two cities led to Japan's surrender at the end of World War II.
In Hiroshima, he will become the first UN secretary general to attend the Peace Memorial Ceremony and in both cities, Ban, a South Korean, plans to visit memorials to Korean atomic bomb victims.
A UN statement said Ban "hopes that his visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki will draw attention to the urgent need to achieve global nuclear disarmament."
Japan is the only nation to have been attacked with atomic bombs.
More than 140,000 people were killed instantly in Hiroshima or died in the days and weeks after the US attack. Three days later a US plane dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people.
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