A message of peace as Obama and Abe meet at Pearl Harbor

U.S. President Barack Obama hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Pearl Harbor spoke of lessons of peace saying the two leaders sent a message that "there is more to be won in peace than in war."

Standing side by side with Abe, Obama said,. "As nations, and as people, we cannot choose the history that we inherit, but we can choose what lesson to draw from it," Obama said.

Abe offered his condolences to the people who were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, after visiting the memorial to the sunken battleship USS Arizona.

"President Obama, the people of the United States of America and the people around the world, as the prime minister of Japan I offer my sincere and everlasting condolences to the souls of those who have lost their lives here," Abe said.

Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor with torpedo planes, bombers and fighter planes on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, pounding the U.S. fleet moored there in the hope of destroying U.S. power in the Pacific.

The meeting is also meant to reinforce the U.S.-Japan partnership ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald Trump, whose opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact and campaign threat to force allied countries to pay more to host U.S. forces raised concerns among allies such as Japan.

Abe met with Trump in New York in November and called him a "trustworthy leader."

The Japanese leader's visit to Pearl Harbor comes months after Obama became the first incumbent U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb in 1945.

Related: Pearl Harbor survivors visit the base on the 75th Anniversary