Baku – APA. Barack Obama has become the first serving US president to visit Hiroshima since the World War Two nuclear attack, BBC reported.
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Mr Obama said the memory of 6 August 1945 must never fade, but did not apologize for the US attack - the world's first nuclear bombing.
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Mr Obama spoke to two survivors and in an address called on nations to pursue a world without nuclear weapons.
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At least 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and another 74,000 three days later in a second bombing in Nagasaki.
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Mr Obama first visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum before walking to the Peace Memorial Park, accompanied by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
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Both men stood in front of the eternal flame. Mr Obama laid a wreath first, followed by Mr Abe.
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"Death fell from the sky and the world was changed," Mr Obama said in his address, noting that the bombing had shown that "mankind possessed the means to destroy itself".
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Mr Obama said the memory of Hiroshima must never fade: "It allows us to fight complacencies, fuels our moral imagination and allows us to change."
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Of nuclear weapons, he said: "We must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them."
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Mr Obama then spoke to two survivors, hugging 79-year-old Shigeaki Mori.
"The president gestured as if he was going to give me a hug, so we hugged," Mr Mori said.
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Mr Obama also talked to Sunao Tsuboi, 91.
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