On the morning of the 21st, President Yoon Seok-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida paid their respects at the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Cenotaph at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Koreans who were victims of the atomic bombing also joined in this visit.
It was the first time that the heads of state of the two countries jointly visited the memorial stone for Korean atomic bomb victims, and it was also the first time that a Korean president paid his respects.
At around 7:32 am that day, Prime Minister Kishida and First Lady Yuko Kishida arrived in front of the memorial stone and waited for President Yoon and First Lady Kim Kun-hee. Prime Minister Kishida also bowed to the Korean victims.
President Yoon and his wife arrived about 35 minutes later and exchanged greetings with Prime Minister Kishida and his wife.
The couple moved to the memorial stone, laid flowers, and bowed in silence for 10 seconds. Ten people, including Korean atomic bomb victim Park Nam-joo, former chairman of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Countermeasures Special Committee, and second-generation atomic bomber Kwon Jun-oh, vice chairman of the Korean People’s Association in Japan (Mindan), also paid their respects.
President Yoon Seok-yeol and his wife Kim Kun-hee, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko Kishida, who are visiting Japan as observers of the G7 summit, lay a wreath at the memorial for Korean atomic bomb victims in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on the 21st. /yunhap news
After visiting the shrine, President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida shook hands and bowed to the victims before moving to the venue for the Korea-Japan summit.
In his opening remarks at the summit, President Yoon said, “Our visit together will be remembered as Prime Minister Kishida’s courageous action to convey his condolences to the Korean atomic bomb victims and at the same time prepare for a peaceful future토토사이트.”
Prime Minister Kishida said, “I think this is important both in bilateral relations and in further developing world peace.”
The Cenotaph for Korean Atomic Bomb Victims is a monument in memory of the 20,000 Koreans who came to Hiroshima for forced labor and were sacrificed in the 1945 atomic bombing. In 1970, a monument was erected across the Peace Park, and in 1999 it was moved into the park.
The tombstone is erected on a tortoise-shaped pedestal, and the tombstone reads, “The atomic bombing of August 6, 1945 took the precious lives of about 20,000 Koreans in an instant. The number of Korean victims, who account for 10% of the 200,000 citizens of Hiroshima, is a number that cannot be overlooked.”