|
TOKYO, Feb. 12-- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday demanded that remarks made by South Korea's National Assembly speaker insisting that Emperor Akihito should apologize for the so-called "comfort women" issue be retracted. "I was astonished. We've immediately conveyed through diplomatic channels that the remarks were extremely inappropriate and deplorable," Abe was quoted as telling a parliamentary committee on the matter. The Japanese government has lodged a "stern protest" over the matter and demanded an apology, Abe told the committee. Abe's comments were based on remarks made by South Korean National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang to Bloomberg news service in an interview last week. The "comfort women" issue refers to soldiers from the Imperial Japanese Army coercing and kidnapping girls and women and forcing them to work as sex slaves, servicing Japanese soldiers at military brothels during World War II. Many of the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese aggressors came from the Korean Peninsula, as well as from other parts of Asia, including China. Euphemistically, these sex slaves have come to be known collectively as the "comfort women". Moon, in the interview, called Japan's Emperor Akihito "the son of the main culprit of war crimes," which was likely owing to the fact that Akihito's father is Emperor Hirohito who was in power before and during World War II. | 
