Japanese welcome Obama's upcoming Hiroshima visit


              FILE - In this March 31, 2016, file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama speaks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their meeting at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. Obama will travel to Hiroshima in May 2016 in the first visit by a sitting American president to the site where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb. The White House says Obama will visit along with Abe during a previously scheduled visit to Japan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
FILE - In this March 31, 2016, file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama speaks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their meeting at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. Obama will travel to Hiroshima in May 2016 in the first visit by a sitting American president to the site where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb. The White House says Obama will visit along with Abe during a previously scheduled visit to Japan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

TOKYO (AP) - Japanese are welcoming President Barack Obama's decision to visit the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima, and those interviewed Wednesday said they aren't seeking an apology.

They expressed happiness that he plans to stop at the memorial for victims of the 1945 bombing after attending the annual Group of Seven summit in Japan.

"I don't live in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but I am overcome with emotion when I think that someone who wants to offer understanding is finally about to arrive," said Mieko Mori, a 74-year-old woman who stopped at a memorial in Tokyo to pray for the victims.

Obama will become the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima, a city almost entirely destroyed by a U.S. atomic bomb in the final days of World War II. Some 140,000 people were killed, and others have endured after-effects to this day.

The U.S. dropped a second devastating atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki three days later. Japan announced it would surrender soon after, on Aug. 15, 1945.

A poll released this week by national broadcaster NHK found that 70 percent of Japanese want Obama to visit Hiroshima, and only two percent were opposed.

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