U.S. President Barack Obama says he wants to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki — cities devastated by U.S. atomic bombs at the end of World War II — sometime during his presidency.
No sitting U.S. president has visited the two cities, largely because of the controversy it could raise at home.
In an interview with NHK broadcast Tuesday, Obama said he would be unable to visit the cities on his visit to Japan this weekend due to time constraints but would be willing to do so in the future.
"The memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are etched in the minds of the world and I would be honored to have the opportunity to visit those cities at some point during my presidency," Obama said in the interview, which was conducted Monday in the White House.
Calls have grown in Japan for Obama to visit the two cities since his April speech envisioning a nuclear-free world and since he was named a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize last month.
But a trip to either city would be a treacherous political minefield for any U.S. president. Signs of sympathy toward Japanese suffering could be seen as criticism of the decision to drop the bombs — viewed among many Americans as a pragmatic decision to hasten the end of the war.