Japan's denial of sex slaves regrettable Seoul

SEOUL, Mar 3 (Reuters) The Japanese prime minister's denial that Asian women were forced into sex slavery by its army during World War Two is regrettable and casts doubts about the sincerity of Tokyo's past apology, South Korea said today.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stirred fresh anger in South Korea with comments on Thursday that there was no evidence to validate claims that Asian women, many of them from Korea, were coerced into serving as sex slaves for the Japanese army.

''Prime Minister Abe's remarks of March 1 to the effect of denying coercion on comfort women is an attempt to gloss over a historic truth, and this government expresses strong regret,'' South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement.

The comments ''cast doubts on the sincerity of Japan's regret and atonement'' as expressed in a 1993 apology, the ministry said.

''Comfort women'' is a euphemism for wartime sex slaves.

Abe was speaking on the day South Korea marked a bloody uprising against Japanese colonial rule and President Roh Moo-hyun called on Japan to take clear actions to atone for the atrocities it committed during World War Two.

Abe, having suffered a sharp drop in public support in his first five months in office, has so far not rejected the 1993 apology, although he had taken a more nationalistic position before becoming prime minister.

''There is no evidence to back up that there was coercion as defined initially,'' Abe said on Thursday, referring to charges that the Japanese Imperial Army had kidnapped women and put them in army brothels.

Three elderly women have recently told harrowing tales of kidnapping and abuse after they were forced into sexual servitude by Japan during the war.

They testified at a debate on a US House of Representative resolution asking Japan to apologise to the women, who rejected Tokyo's past apologies as insulting and insufficient.

Japan in the 1993 apology -- dubbed the Kono statement after the chief cabinet secretary at the time Yohei Kono -- acknowledged a state role in the wartime brothel programme and later issued apologies.

It set up the Asian Women's Fund, and about 285 women accepted payments of about 20,000 dollar with personal apologies from Japan's prime minister.

Japan's ties with South Korea and China were strained under the administration of Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, who repeatedly visited a Tkyo shrine that honours Japanese World War Two leaders convicted as war criminals.

But ties had begun to improve after Abe reached out to Seoul and Beijing shortly after taking office last year.

''We despair at the unethical Japanese leadership that, instead of trying to sooth the victims' scars, sprays salt over them,'' the mainstream JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial today.

''How is it possible to talk about friendship between South Korea and Japan?'' REUTERS SP KN1613