DHAKA: Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has visited several memorials in Hawaii, ahead of a visit to Pearl Harbor, the US naval base attacked by the Japanese in 1941.

Abe will be accompanied by US President Barack Obama, making the visit the first by the leaders of both countries since the attack, reports BBC.

Abe will pray for the dead but will not issue an apology, his aides said.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour killed 2,300 US servicemen and propelled the US into World War Two.

After landing, the Japanese prime minister first headed to National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and laid down a wreath.

He stood for a moment of silence at the cemetery near downtown Honolulu, a memorial to those who died.

All eight battleships at the base were damaged and four were sunk. But the key US aircraft carriers were at sea at the time.

On Tuesday, Abe and Obama will pray for the dead at the site of the attack before holding a summit meeting in Hawaii, their last before Obama steps down in January.

Abe's visit, three weeks after the 75th anniversary of the attack, follows a visit earlier this year to Hiroshima by Mr Obama.

He became the first serving US president to visit the Japanese city, where about 150,000 people are believed to have been killed in 1945 by a US atomic bomb.

The first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor was Shigeru Yoshida who in 1951 stopped over in Hawaii both on the way to and from the signing of the peace treaty with the US in San Francisco.

BDST: 0915 HRS, DEC 27, 2016
AP