TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday sought to contain fallout from his remarks about women forced to act as wartime sex slaves for Japanese soldiers as the furor threatened to cloud summits with Chinese and US leaders.

Abe sparked outrage abroad when he said last month there was no evidence that Japan's government had forced the mostly Asian women to suffer in military brothels during World War II.

Abe also said Tokyo would not apologize again even if US lawmakers adopted a resolution calling for a new and unambiguous apology.

But Abe repeated yesterday that a 1993 apology made by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono remained in effect.

"We have stated our heartfelt apologies to the 'comfort women' at the time who suffered greatly and were injured in their hearts," Abe said in an interview with NHK television.

"I want to say that that sentiment has not changed at all."

The furor precedes a visit to Tokyo in mid-April by Premier Wen Jiabao and Abe's trip to Washington later that month.

In a sign the Bush administration was growing concerned, US Ambassador Thomas Schieffer last week advised Tokyo not to renege on the 1993 apology, known as the "Kono Statement".

"No friend of Japan would want Japan to back away from the Kono Statement," Schieffer said on Friday.

China has also called on Tokyo to face up to its war time past. Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told a news briefing last week that "the forced use of 'comfort women' was one of the most serious crimes committed by the Japanese militarists during World War II", and urged Japan to handle the issue "earnestly and properly".

US Congressman Michael Honda, a California Democrat, has introduced a resolution seeking an unambiguous apology for the suffering of the sex slaves at the hands of the Japanese army.

Abe has declined of late to elaborate on his stance, which he says was misreported by some US media, and yesterday only about one minute of an hour-long interview was devoted to the topic.

"Keeping a lower profile suggests Abe has found his pragmatism again," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Samuels. "No more fuel on the fire."

Some, however, question whether the strategy will work.

"He wants to put an end to this unfortunate situation," said Andrew Horvat, a professor at Tokyo Keizai University. "But the fact is that the genie is out of the bottle. The whole issue of the US resolution is to make a clear and unambiguous apology and he has again shown that he is unwilling to do that."

Agencies

(China Daily 03/12/2007 page1)