‘No change’ to wartime sex slave apology – Abe
TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday that his government would not revise a landmark 1993 "comfort women" apology, and said he was "deeply pained" by the suffering of women drawn into a system of wartime brothels.
Abe, who has made similar remarks in the past, has faced criticism for his government's plan to review what is known as the Kono statement, which acknowledged official complicity in the coercion of military sex slaves, a historical legacy that draws raw resentment in neighboring South Korea.
Respected historians say up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea but also from China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan, were forced to serve Japanese soldiers. They are sometimes called "comfort women".
On Friday, Abe said that his cabinet "upholds the position on the recognition of history outlined by the previous administrations in its entirety" including the Kono statement.
"With regard to the comfort women issue, I am deeply pained to think of the comfort women who experienced immeasurable pain and suffering, a feeling I share equally with my predecessors," he told a parliamentary committee, according to a statement issued by the ministry of foreign affairs.
"The Kono Statement addresses this issue... As my Chief Cabinet Secretary (Yoshihide) Suga stated in press conferences, the Abe cabinet has no intention to review it."