hankyoreh

Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo said Monday that there is "no need for us to apologize even if there is a resolution" passed by the United States House of Representatives calling on Japan to formally apologize over the issue of so-called comfort women, forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.

Abe was responding to a question by an opposition member of the Japanese lower house's budget committee.

The resolution being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives "is not based on objective fact," he said.

However, he also said he respects what is known as the Kono Statement, a statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Kono Yohei in 1993 recognizing that Japanese military authorities had been involved in coercively rounding up women to serve as prostitutes for the military.

"It's not like there was coercion in which the [Japanese colonial] authorities charged into people's homes and dragged them away," he said. "There was what was essentially coerciveness involving contractors. I think there seemed to be coercion only in the broad sense of the word."

His comments are being seen in Korea as meaning that while he accepts the general sense of coercion defined in the Kono Statement, he does not accept the language of the resolution soon to be considered by the U.S . Congress, which says that the Japanese military and military police forcibly took Korean women and made them sex slaves and, ultimately, either murdered them or pushed them into committing suicide.

Current Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki Yasuhisa, at a press conference at which he was asked about Abe's comments, said the South Korean foreign ministry's criticism of what the prime minister had said "was not based on an appropriate interpretation" of what was meant by Abe's statement that "there is 'no evidence' of coercion." Shiozaki said it "completely makes no sense to say [the Japanese government] is hinting at revising the Kono Statement" and that Abe is contradicting it. The Abe administration will keep the Kono Statement unchanged, he added.

Abe said earlier this week that there is no evidence coercion was used by the Japanese government or military in rounding up women to be sex slaves.

On Sunday, opposition leader Ozawa Ichiro said, "The problem is one of the prime minister's own understanding and approach to history. He needs to make his ideology and philosophy clear and then make his conclusions about individual issues."

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]