U.S. envoy Roos to visit Nagasaki on Sept. 26: city gov't+

NAGASAKI, Sept. 10 Kyodo -
U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos will visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum
and other places during a trip to the city on Sept. 26, the Nagasaki city
government said Friday.
It will be Roos' first visit to the city, which was hit by an atomic bomb
dropped by the United States during World War II, since he assumed his post in
August last year.
According to the city government and the Japan-America Society of Nagasaki,
Roos will attend an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the
association and visit Nagasaki Peace Park as well as the museum.
In Nagasaki, atomic-bomb survivors, known as ''hibakusha,'' expressed
expectations that the U.S. ambassador will see the realities of the terrible
devastation wreaked by the atomic bombing and convey to the world their hope
that Nagasaki will be the last city to suffer such an attack.
Roos attended a ceremony on Aug. 6 to mark the 65th anniversary of the U.S.
atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, becoming the first U.S. representative to
do so. But he skipped a similar memorial service on Aug. 9 in Nagasaki, which
was hit by an atomic bomb three days after Hiroshima, citing scheduling
conflicts.
The U.S. Embassy, however, said later that Roos had made a phone call to
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue before the service and expressed his hope to visit
the southwestern Japan city in the future.
Taue said in a news conference in August, ''(The U.S. ambassador's) taking a
step forward to visit Hiroshima means a great deal and we hope he will visit
Nagasaki next time.''
==Kyodo
2010-09-10 23:07:05


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