Japan PM stands by sex slaves apology-aide

TOKYO, Mar 4 (Reuters) Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stands by a government apology for forcing Asian women to have sex with Japanese soldiers during World War Two, an aide today said, after the leader's comments questioning the use of force angered the region.

''The Prime Minister has said that coercion can be defined in many ways, such as broadly or narrowly, but that he will stand firmly by the Kono statement,'' Hiroshige Seko, Abe's special adviser in charge of public relations, said on a TV Asahi programme.

''There is no change to that.'' The aide was referring to the 1993 apology -- dubbed the ''Kono statement'' after the chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yohei Kono, acknowledged that the military played a role in managing the wartime brothels.

Abe has stood by the apology since taking office in September and has been seeking to mend ties with China and South Korea, strained by his predecessor's visits to a Tokyo shrine that honours Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals.

But he set off controversy last week when he questioned the degree of the military's involvement in the wartime brothels.

''There is no evidence to back up that there was coercion as defined initially,'' Abe told reporters on Thursday.

Yesterday, South Korea's foreign ministry issued a statement saying Abe's denial of coercion on the women was regrettable and cast doubt about the sincerity of Japan's past apology.

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

The women, who reject Tokyo's past apologies as insulting and inefficient, testified at a debate on a U.S. House of Representative resolution asking Japan to apologise to ''comfort women'' -- a Japanese euphemism for wartime sex slaves.

Abe's comment came as a group of Japanese ruling party lawmakers prepared to urge the government to water down parts of the Kono statement apology.

The statement, issued after a year and a half of research, acknowledged that ''comfort stations'', or brothels, were set up at the request of military authorities at the time.

''The then Japanese miliary was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women,'' the statement reads.

The statement also said that the women ''lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere''.

REUTERS SHB RN1508