Prior to the announcement Tuesday that U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima later this month to attend the Group of Seven summit, mayors of the only two cities to have been attacked with nuclear weapons had long sought the landmark event.
The mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have jointly requested that Obama visit the two cities by handing over invitation letters through U.S. ambassadors to Japan five times since he assumed the presidency in 2009.
In the latest move, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui and Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue met with U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy last Dec. 24.