TOKYO — Japan will not revise a landmark apology to women forced to
work in military brothels during World War II even as it moves ahead with
a review of the testimony used to create that apology, a spokesman for the
Japanese government said Monday.
Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters that the
conservative government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had no intention of
changing the 1993 apology, called the Kono Statement. The apology
admitted for the first time that the Imperial military played at least an
indirect role in forcing the women, known euphemistically as “comfort
women,” to provide sex to Japanese soldiers.
Mr. Suga was responding to rising criticism from South Korea, a
former Japanese colony where many of the women came from, of an
announcement made two weeks ago by Mr. Suga that the government
would review evidence used to support the apology. At that time, Mr. Suga
said the government would form a panel of experts to review the evidence
used to back up the statement, mostly testimony made two decades ago by
16 aging former sex slaves.
Mr. Suga announced the review under pressure from nationalist
lawmakers who denounced the 1993 apology as the product of a Koreanled
campaign to defame Japan, saying the women were just common prostitutes
Japan Won’t Alter Apology to World War II Sex Slaves - NYTimes.com
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