As 2016 comes to a close — a year filled with the images of horrible violence in battle zones around the world — this week’s meeting between the Japanese prime minister and the American president provides a glimmer of hope.

Shinzo Abe this week visited memorial sites on Oahu, including some repositories of the dark history of World War II.

On Monday, Abe paid his respects at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. On Tuesday, he met with President Barack Obama at the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, a landmark of the loss of thousands who died in Japan’s bombing attack 75 years ago — the U.S. entry into the war.

Although the reconciliation between America and Japan has been ongoing for decades, there was a sense of closure with this visit. It was the second part of a peace offering between the two countries.

Obama visited Hiroshima in May, the first sitting American president to do so, to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the atomic bomb blasts in that city and Nagasaki in 1945.

“I believe he (Obama) has strengthened his resolve to achieve a world without nuclear weapons,” said Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui at the time.

“This would become a historic starting point for steady steps to realize a nuclear-free world.”

The rhetoric about war readiness has grown more heated in recent weeks, with President-elect Donald Trump urging a buildup of America’s nuclear arsenal. We must hope that time has not utterly erased from the global conscience the reality of an atomic blast, or the wisdom of reducing rather than increasing weapon stockpiles.

Both the Hiroshima and the Pearl Harbor ceremonies were conceived as an occasion for acknowledgment, not apologies. But the occasion presented the opportunity to offer sincere condolences, something people of conscience do for each other.

What was acknowledged in these meetings was the magnitude of the loss in those attacks and the true consequences of war, in contrast with the bonds of the alliance that emerged from the conflict.

As Obama said in his Monday speech at Pearl Harbor, “The fruits of peace always outweigh the plunder of war.”

For his part, Abe prepared remarks that movingly described the echoes of servicemen lost in the attack on the U.S. fleet in the harbor on Dec. 7, 1941:

“Voices of lively conversations, upbeat and at ease, on that day, on a Sunday morning. Voices of young servicemen talking to each other about their futures and dreams. Voices calling out the names of loved ones in their very final moments.”

Mutual respect can replace hatred. The prime minister recounted his experience visiting a memorial marker set at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. It honored a Japanese imperial pilot who returned to the field to fight rather than retreat to his aircraft carrier after his plane was hit.

“The brave respect the brave,” Abe said, quoting poet Ambrose Bierce. “Showing respect even to an enemy they fought against; trying to understand even an enemy that they hated — therein lies the spirit of tolerance embraced by the American people.”

And since the war, he said, Japan has created “a free and democratic country that values the rule of law and has resolutely upheld our vow never again to wage war.”

There is hope in that vow, a hope to which we cling now. Time and the resolve of two warring nations can overcome wounds as deep as those endured at Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So there is reason to believe that the suffering of Syria and other war-torn areas will end some day. And it will — if we can hear the victims and refugees who share dreams and desires not unlike our own, and help them acquire the fruits of peace.