At Harvard, protesters demand Abe to apologize for Japan's wartime crimes

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States April 27, 2015.[Photo/Agencies]

In response to a question about "comfort women", a euphemism for the females forced into sex slavery to the Japanese military during the war, Abe told Harvard students that his "heart aches" when he thinks about the women who were victimized by human trafficking and who were subject to "immeasurable pain and suffering."

The Prime Minister added that he "had the occasion to mention" that he would uphold a 1993 statement of apology on the issue, and his feeling is no different from his predecessors in this regard.

Erik Gorard, a computer science student at Harvard, said he was "pretty disappointed" at Abe's answer, adding that the Japanese Prime Minister "definitely evaded that question a little bit."

"Concerning today's speech, I don't think he will address the comfort women issue in any more detail" in his speech to Congress, Gorard said.