Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a solemn pilgrimage to Pearl Harbor Tuesday, expressing "sincere and everlasting condolences" to the families of the more than 2,400 Americans killed by Japanese fighters.
"We must never repeat the horrors of war," he said, marking the 75th anniversary of the infamous attack that triggered America's entry into World War II.
Standing next to US President Barack Obama, Abe expressed thanks for the "tolerance extended to Japan" as he hailed the power of reconciliation.
The pair paid homage to the more than 2,400 Americans killed on December 7, 1941, delivering a ring of peace lilies and standing in silence before a shrine to those lost on the USS Arizona.
Abe's visit is a high-profile mark of respect for a leader for whom Japan's wartime past is often a prickly domestic issue.
It was foreshadowed by Obama's own solemn pilgrimage to Hiroshima, where the United States effectively ended the war by dropping the first of two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities.
The meeting between the two leaders comes as Obama prepares to leave office and with Abe leading Japan into uncharted waters, after remarks by incoming US president Donald Trump clouded US-Japanese relations.
The US president-elect has declared his opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, effectively killing a major trade deal that Obama championed and that Abe put at the heart of his economic strategy.
And, at least on the campaign trail, Trump has also called into question the US security guarantees that shielded Japan through the Cold War and later through the rise of an increasingly confident China.
The two leaders held their last bilateral meeting in the morning and will make remarks at around 12:05 pm (2205 GMT).
