President Barack Obama will be visiting Hiroshima later this month while in Japan for the G-7 summit, the White House confirmed Tuesday.
According to the White House, the president will be making the trip with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "to highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."
As NPR notes, the trip will mark the first time a U.S. president has visited the site since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War I, in August 1945, killing many tens of thousands of people. The site is now a park and museum that memorializes the victims of the attack and promotes peace and nuclear disarmament.
Just last month, Secretary of State John Kerry became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the site since the bombings. He called the Peace Memorial Museum "a stunning display … a gut-wrenching display."
Read more at NPR.