At Hiroshima Obama seeks contemplation; no Pearl Harbor for Abe

US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he plans to use his historic visit to Hiroshima with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reflect on the suffering of war and the need to take steps to prevent it. Abe said he had no plans to reciprocate Obama's gesture by paying his own visit to Pearl Harbor.

Obama opened his trip to Japan with much intrigue about his upcoming stop in the city where the United States dropped the first atomic bomb. But that first visit by a sitting US president was caught up over the recent arrest of a former Marine in connection with the murder of a Japanese woman in Okinawa.

Abe ripped into Obama while demanding US steps to prevent further incidents. Obama said the US would support having the suspect prosecuted through Japan's legal system.