Japan PM outlined sex slave stance to US leaders

DOHA, May 1 (Reuters) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today said that US Congressional leaders now understood his stance on the issue of women forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in World War Two after talks with him.

Abe set off a furore in March when he denied that there was evidence the government or military were directly involved in kidnapping the women, known as ''comfort women'' in Japan.

He has since apologised for their suffering and repeated that he stands by a 1993 apology acknowledging official involvement in setting up and managing the military brothels.

US lawmakers have introduced a resolution demanding an unambiguous apology, though a vote is not expected until May.

The issue had threatened to shadow Abe's meeting with US President George W Bush in Washington last week, and he met with Congressional leaders to explain his thinking -- an explanation he later repeated to Bush, who said he accepted it.

Asked if he still felt there was no evidence that ''comfort women'' were coerced by the military, Abe sidestepped the issue by telling reporters travelling with him to the United States and Middle East that he had already explained himself on the matter.

''I think that my thoughts and feelings on the matter were not relayed correctly (at first), and I explained this to Congressional leaders, who I believe understood,'' he said.

''I did not apologise to the United States. I only clearly expressed my feelings.'' WARTIME BROTHELS Abe told the lawmakers, and later Bush, that he sympathised with the suffering of the women both as a person and prime minister, apologising for what they had gone through.

Historians believe thousands of women, mostly Asian, were forced to work at the wartime brothels.

On Friday, two Chinese women who said they had been kidnapped and forced to provide sex for the Japanese military in World War Two lost their case for compensation at Japan's Supreme Court, but the court upheld an earlier ruling that acknowledged the two were forced into sexual servitude.

During his meeting with reporters, Abe also denied speculation that a planned, and crucial, July election for parliament's upper house could become a double election through his dissolving the more powerful lower house.

''I have absolutely no intention of dissolving the lower house,'' he said.

Abe has been visiting the West Asia since April 28. Tomorrow he goes to Egypt, the final stop, and then heads back to Japan.

Reuters SY RS2118