(VOVworld) - 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.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe presents a wreath at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. December 26, 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

Mr Abe will be accompanied by US President Barack Obama, making the visit the first by the leaders of both countries since the attack. Mr Abe will pray for the dead but will not issue an apology, his aides said. After landing, the Japanese prime minister first headed to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and laid a wreath. He stood for a moment of silence at the cemetery near central Honolulu, a memorial to those who died.