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TOKYO: Japanese politicians played down Sunday the significance of a US proposed resolution demanding Japan apologise over use of sex slaves, many of them Chinese and Korean women, during World War II.
"Japan should not act so sensitively to such moves. It can be used as part a game of international politics," said Hidenao Nakagawa, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
He was referring to moves by a Democratic congressman from California who is pushing for the resolution to passed.
"It appears that the congressman was motivated in part due to the composition of his voter district," Nakagawa said. "For him, the proposal of the resolution was in part a domestic move."
Foreign Minister Taro Aso also shrugged off the proposal and speculated that its submission might be a result of efforts to weaken the Japan-US alliance, possibly by China or North Korea.
"It is an effective move to separate Japan and the United States," Aso told a television talk show.
"Anti-Japan operations and efforts to separate Japan and the United States are making certain progress," Aso said.
When asked if the "operations" were carried out by North Korea or China, Aso said: "Of course, I think so."
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly pledged to stand by a 1993 government statement which apologised to sex slaves and said the imperial army was involved "directly or indirectly" in the recruitment and management of the brothels.
"I stand by the statement. We have been sincerely apologizing to the individuals once called comfort women, who suffered deep emotional scars and went through extreme difficulties," Abe told a separate televised interview.
Historians say up to 200,000 young women, mostly from Korea but also from China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan, were forced to serve as sex slaves in Japanese army brothels.
The premier, known for his conservative views on history, caused an uproar recently when he said there was no hard evidence that so-called "comfort women" were forced by the military into sexual slavery "in the strict sense of coercion."
He later elaborated that he was talking about physical coercion such as kidnappings of women by soldiers to put them into brothels.
Abe has said he will not respond to the US resolution, even if the US congress approves it. - AFP/yy
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