Kennedy bids farewell, thanks Abe for supporting U.S.-Japan alliance

TOKYO—Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy expressed her gratitude to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for his contribution to strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance in her farewell message released Monday.

“I want to thank Prime Minister Abe and the members of his government for working to strengthen our ‘alliance of hope’ and for sharing President (Barack) Obama’s belief in the ‘power of reconciliation’,” said Kennedy, who is set to leave Japan on Wednesday, in a video message released by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

Kennedy cited Abe’s visit last December to Pearl Harbor, which was attacked by Japan in 1941, and for arranging Obama’s historic visit last May to Hiroshima, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in 1945.