Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday that he would visit Pearl Harbor, becoming the first sitting Japanese leader to go to the site of Japan’s attack 75 years ago that pulled a stunned United States into World War II.
Mr. Abe said in a televised news conference that he would travel to the American naval base with President Obama during a trip to Hawaii on Dec. 26 and 27.
By visiting Pearl Harbor, Mr. Abe will in effect be reciprocating a historic trip Mr. Obama made in May to Hiroshima, where the United States dropped a nuclear bomb at the end of the war with Japan in 1945. No sitting American president had previously visited the city.
Mr. Abe’s visit will be one of a series of efforts by Japan to come to terms with its wartime history, without engaging in direct apologies. He is in a unique position to carry off the trip, as a nationalist who has been outspoken about Japan’s need to move beyond its history and play a greater role in its own defense.
