By Li Hongmei
Japan committed indescribable wrongdoings by forcing women from South Korea and elsewhere to serve as sex slaves to its wartime troops, former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama said yesterday.
Murayama, who as prime minister issued an apology in 1995 for Japan's wartime aggression, said that it was time for Tokyo to finally resolve the issue of the so-called "comfort women" who were drafted into military brothels.
"Indescribable wrongdoings were committed, in which these women's dignity was forfeited. Japan must solve it," he said in a speech inside the parliament building in Seoul.
On Tuesday, Murayama, now 89, met with three aged South Korean comfort women, after which he said he realized "that this issue must be settled expeditiously," he said.
He also criticized some Japanese politicians and opinion-makers for making "nonsensical remarks" about the former sex slaves and stressed that the vast majority of Japanese people understood the wrong that had been committed.
Katsuto Momii, the new head of Japan's national broadcaster NHK, angered South Korea recently by stating that wartime sex slavery was common to any country at war.
Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula remains a hugely emotive issue in South Korea, which believes Japan has failed to live up to the spirit of the 1995 apology and not properly atoned for its past aggression.
Japan must squarely face up to its history and apologize for it, Murayama said, noting that Seoul and Tokyo must establish future-oriented relationship based on Japan's repentance over its past brutalities.
Ties between South Korea and Japan have been strained since Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in late 2012.
In December last year, Abe visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japan's militaristic past as it enshrines 14 World War II class-A war criminals.
South Korea's President Park Geun-hye has made it clear she will not hold a summit with Abe until the Japanese leader takes steps to address South Korea's historical grievances.
