`Abe should apologize at the anniversary of the end of the 2nd World`

Ed Royce, chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, has bitterly criticized the act of clouding the issue of past history by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"I was disappointed with the prime minister`s failure to address issues about history and issues about the plight of the comfort women as well,” he said in a meeting with Chairman Na Kyung-won of the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee who is visiting America to meet a group of lawmakers from America and Japan. He also stressed that “It is important to squarely confront the past as the German leader has.”

Royce intensified his criticism against Prime Minister Abe by saying that the 70th anniversary of the conclusion of the war in August, that`s the next opportunity (that Prime Minister Abe can right the history issues),” adding that “It is important to speak with "one voice" to Abe that he should acknowledge Japan`s wartime sexual enslavement and apologize.” Also at the meeting were Chairman Hwang Jin-ha of National Defense Committee from the ruling Saenuri Party and Rep. Kim Seong-gon from the New Politics Alliance for Democracy.

Before the meeting, Royce issued a statement, saying that “I was very disappointed” when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe didn’t apologize for Japan-forced sexual slavery at the joint address of the U.S. Congress on April 29.

The White House and the U.S. Department of Defense made a neutral evaluation on his address by saying that they note Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that he succeeds to the history recognition by previous prime ministers.

ddr@donga.com