Pearl Harbor anniversary: Obama says he looks forward to visit by Shinzo Abe, Japanese leader

President Obama marked the 75th anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor Wednesday by saying he hopes a visit by the Japanese prime minister will show “the power of reconciliation.”

The president said he’s looking forward to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the USS Arizona Memorial later this month “as a testament that even the most bitter of adversaries can become the closest of allies.”

Mr. Abe will become the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor since the attack in 1941 propelled the U.S. into World War II. More than 2,400 U.S. service members were killed in the bombings.

Earlier this year, Mr. Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, site of a nuclear bomb attack by the U.S. that hastened the end of the war.

Mr. Obama said the Japanese leader’s visit to Hawaii “will stand as a tribute to the power of reconciliation and to the truth that the United States and Japan — bound by an alliance unimaginable 75 years ago — will continue to work hand-in-hand for a more peaceful and secure world.”

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is a time to “give thanks to the veterans and survivors of Pearl Harbor who faced down fear itself, met infamy with intrepidity, freed captive peoples from fascism and whose example inspires us still,” the president said.

“Out of the horrors of war, this Greatest Generation forged an enduring international order, became the backbone of the middle class and powered America’s prosperity,” he said. “Their courage and resolve remind us of that fundamental American truth — that out of many we are one; and that when we stand together, no undertaking is too great.”