U.S. film director Oliver Stone will attend memorial ceremonies and speak to atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki this week, as the two cities commemorate the lives lost in the U.S. atomic bombings in 1945.

Stone arrived in Hiroshima on Sunday and will attend a memorial ceremony Tuesday and visit Nagasaki and Okinawa thereafter, event organizers at the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs said.

The organizers have titled a series of events from Aug. 3-9 to commemorate the bombings that led to Japan's surrender at the end of World War II: "Toward a nuclear weapon-free, peaceful and just world."

The film director will join delegations from 18 different countries, comprising around 80 people as well as hundreds of local participants, local media reported on Monday.

Stone, who paid a somber visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, took time to talk to an elderly lady who survived the tragedy in Hiroshima, and carefully examined pictures and plaques related to the 1945 bombing of the city.

Stone, currently involved in making a documentary that questions the U.S.'s use of nuclear weapons in 1945, was quoted as saying he felt deeply sad about the travesty of the events caused by the U.S. and the devastation it caused to the city and people living there.

He added that the events 68 years ago had "strongly affected him."

In Nagasaki, similar events and memorial ceremonies will be held from Aug. 7 through Aug. 9 and, according to local media, Angela Kane, the U.N. high representative for disarmament affairs, will give a key note speech on the bombings.

Stone is also scheduled to meet with survivors in Nagasaki, the organizers said.

Stone is famous for a series of films he directed depicting the Vietnam War. Stone himself served in the war as a soldier.

The prominent director has received three Academy Awards and was presented with the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award at the 2007 Austin Film Festival.

According to official statistics, within the first two to four months of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, between 90, 000 and 166,000 people lost their lives in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 people perished in Nagasaki. Endi

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