Japan FM Denies Reports of Obama’s Upcoming Visit to Hiroshima

Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday denied media reports that claimed US President Barack Obama would make a historic visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima in May.

TOKYO (Sputnik) – This would be the first trip of a sitting US president to the city that had an atomic bomb dropped on it by the US Air Force during the World War II.

"Nothing about President Obama’s visit has been determined at this stage, I will refrain from making any predictions in this regard," Kishida told journalists after he was asked to comment on the rumors.

Nikkei Asian Review, a Tokyo-based business journal, cited US sources as saying earlier on Friday that the US and Japanese governments were in the process of arranging Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, scheduled for May 27.

A summit of G7 nations – the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and Japan – will be held in Japan's Kashiko Island next month.

Last August, Japan marked 70 years since a US B-29 bomber dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing about 140,000 people. A second strike three days later killed 70,000 people in the city of Nagasaki, causing Japan to surrender.