U.S. Ambassador John Roos will attend this year's atomic bomb ceremonies in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sources said Friday.
The Hiroshima event is Tuesday while the ceremony in Nagasaki will be held next Friday, commemorating the 68th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings.
The ambassador's attendance will be officially announced soon, the sources close to Japan-U.S. relations said.
Roos, who will soon step down from his post, became in 2010 the first U.S. ambassador to attend the Hiroshima ceremony. Last year he became the first to go to the memorial in Nagasaki.
This will be the third year in a row he has attended the Hiroshima ceremony.
Roos is an appointee of President Barack Obama, who has made policy speeches pushing for a world without nuclear weapons.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida are scheduled to attend the ceremonies in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The government is arranging for Abe to also visit nursing homes for atomic bomb survivors and meet with their representatives to listen to their requests.
Kishida will be the first foreign minister to attend the annual ceremony in Nagasaki, according to the Foreign Ministry.