Tokyo, 29 March

US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth praised Saturday the friendship and trust that his country and Japan have developed while attending a memorial service on Iwo Jima to honour those who died in battle during World War II.

Japan is Hegseth's second stop after the Philippines on his first Asia trip. His visit comes as Beijing has been showing increasingly assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea and following threats by President Donald Trump to impose trade tariffs on the East Asian country, a key US ally.

Hegseth landed on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, now known as Iwoto, where Japanese and American soldiers faced off in one of the war's fiercest battles. He joined several American veterans who survived the battle and Japanese bereaved families, as well as his Japanese counterpart, Gen Nakatani, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and other officials at Saturdsay's Reunion of Honour event.

“Iwo Jima embodies our shared warrior ethos, our shared devotion to the nation, and to duty and our shared reverence for the men of valour who preceded us,” Hegseth said in front of the cenotaph built in 1985 marking their first joint memorial.

“The US-Japan alliance shows ... how yesterday's enemy has become today's friends,” Hegseth said. “Our alliance has been and remains the cornerstone of freedom, prosperity, security and peace in the Indo-Pacific.”

Recent polls show the Japanese feel more affinity toward the US than any other country. Most Americans and Japanese alive today were born after Japan surrendered in August 1945.

Japan, which faces growing threats from China, North Korea and Russia, has been accelerating its military buildup and increasingly working closely with the US military.

On Sunday, Hegseth will hold talks with Nakatani in Tokyo to discuss further strengthening the alliance.

“We must not forget that the peace and prosperity we enjoy today have been built upon the noble sacrifices of those who died in the war and the tireless efforts of the people over the past 80 years since the end of the war,” said Japan's Ishiba, who became the first serving Japanese prime minister to attend the joint Iwo Jima memorial.

Ishiba renewed his determination to peace and to further elevate the Japan-US alliance.

“And we must continue to endeavour to humbly face the history and keep telling the harrowing experience of the war to the world so that we never repeat the tragedy of war," Ishiba said.

The 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima is best known for the photo by The Associated Press' Joe Rosenthal showing six Marines raising the US flag over Mount Suribachi.

About 70,000 American troops fought at Iwo Jima from 19 February to 26 March, 1945, as the US tried to take control of a key strategic point to advance to mainland Japan. Nearly 7,000 Marines and about 20,000 Japanese were killed. More than half of the remains of the Japanese are still unaccounted for.