Though US President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima on Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has no plans to pay a reciprocal visit to Pearl Harbor.

The sneak attack Japan launched on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor dragged the United States into World War II. And for many people in Japan, that military operation heralded the beginning of the war's Asiatic-Pacific theatre.

Pearl Harbor is as sensitive a place for Japan's leaders to set foot as Hiroshima and Nagasaki are for US presidents.