John Kerry, in Hiroshima, calls for end to nukes

US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during a news conference at the conclusion of the G7 foreign ministers meetings in Hiroshima, Japan. (Photo: PTI)

US secretary of state John Kerry on Monday called his visit to a memorial to the victims of the 1945 US nuclear attack on Hiroshima “gut-wrenching” and said it was a reminder of the need to pursue a world free of nuclear weapons.

The first US secretary of state to visit Hiroshima, Mr Kerry said President Barack Obama also wanted to travel to the city in southern Japan but he did not know whether the leader’s complex schedule would allow him to do so when he visits the country for a Group of Seven (G7) summit in May.

Mr Kerry toured the Hiroshima peace memorial and museum, whose haunting displays include photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs.

“It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display,” he said. “It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation everyone of us in public life carries ... to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons,” he told a news conference.

After the tour by Mr Kerry and his fellow G7 foreign ministers, the group issued a statement reaffirming their commitment to building a world without nuclear arms but said the push had been made more complex by North Korea’s repeated “provocations” and by worsening security in Syria and Ukraine.

The ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States laid white wreaths at a cenotaph to the victims of the August 6, 1945 bombing, which reduced the city to ashes and killed some 1,40,000 people by the end of that year.

While he is not the highest-ranking US official to have toured the museum and the memorial park, a distinction that belongs to then-US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in 2008, Mr Kerry is the most senior executive branch official to visit.

“Everyone in the world should see and feel the power of this memorial. It is a stark, harsh, compelling reminder not only of our obligation to end the threat of nuclear weapons, but to rededicate all our effort to avoid war itself,” the chief United States diplomat wrote in a guest book.

Asked later if this meant Mr Obama should come, Mr Kerry said: “Everyone means everyone. So I hope one day the President of the United States will be among the everyone who is able to come here. Whether or not he can come as President, I don’t know.”

A visit by Mr Obama could be controversial in America if it were viewed as an apology.

A majority of Americans view the bombings as justified to end the war and save US lives, while the vast majority of Japanese believe it was not justified.

The visit came after a senior United States official said Mr Kerry won’t offer an apology for the United States’ use of the atomic bomb against Japan when he visits the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.