Outgoing US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have marked the 75th anniversary of a deadly attack on a US naval base, which gave Washington the pretext to enter World War II.
The two counterparts, attending a wreath-laying ceremony on Tuesday, paid tribute to the victims of the attack in a memorial site at Pearl Harbor in the US state of Hawaii.
Obama said in his address that the Japanese premier’s visit to the site showed the power of reconciliation, also hailing Washington-Tokyo alliance as very strong.
“The United States and Japan chose friendship and they chose peace. Over the decades our alliance has made both of our nations more successful, it has helped underwrite an international order that has prevented another world war and that has lifted more than a billion people out of extreme poverty,” Obama said.
“Today, the alliance between the United States and Japan, bound not only by shared interests but also rooted…