Foreign Minister Taro Kono cautioned South Korea's top legislator against making divisive remarks after the lawmaker urged the Japanese Emperor to make a personal apology to women forced to work in the country's military brothels.
Kono was responding to a question Sunday about South Korean National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang's comments in a Bloomberg News interview last week. In it, Moon said he wanted Emperor Akihito, 85, to hold hands with the elderly former "comfort women" and apologize as "the son of the main culprit of war crimes."
"I want him to be careful about his statements," Kono told reporters during a visit to the Philippines, according to a transcript posted on the Foreign Ministry's website. Kono said the comfort women dispute was resolved "fully and finally" by a 2015 agreement, in which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered victims "most sincere apologies" and created a compensation fund.
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