Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday in
parliament that he would work to improve the strained relations
with China and South Korea and endeavor to build future-oriented
relations with them.
Abe reiterated that China and South Korea are "important
neighbors," with whom Japan should strengthen dialogues and
cooperation and establish future-oriented ties.
On the stance of Japan's wartime history, Abe said that there
should be "frank" reflections on the fact that the war had brought
huge damage both at home and abroad.
He honored the then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono's
apologies, made in 1993 over the fact that Japan had forced women
from other Asian countries to be sex slaves during World War
II.
The prime minister, Japan's first to be born after WWII, also
clarified his intention of revising the 1947 constitution.
"It was set when Japan was under US occupation. Sixty years have
passed since then and it has become unsuitable to today's reality,"
Abe said when questioned in the upper house of parliament.
"It is necessary for us to draft our own constitution that
proclaims our ideals and the Japanese way to fit the 21st century,"
he said.
(Xinhua News Agency October 4, 2006)