Japanese PM should not avoid answering history issue: newspaper

TOKYO - An editorial carried by the Japan Times on Wednesday said that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cannot duck history issue amid frayed ties with neighboring countries at a time that marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

The editorial said, "Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should not skirt the issue of historical perception," referring to the prime minister's answers to an opposition lawmaker's question in a Diet session as it "raises suspicions over his perception of Japan's war in the 1930s and 40s."

During a recent Diet questioning, Chief of the Japanese Communist Party Kazuo Shii questioned Abe whether he thinks the past war Japan waged is wrong, citing the 1995 Murayama Statement, and whether the prime minister admits the Potsdam Declaration which also ruled the war Japan launched in the past is aggression war.

The prime minister said that he inherits the 1995 landmark statement issued by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama "as a whole," but avoid admitting that Japan's past wrong policy was the culprit of the suffering of Japan's Asian neighbors.

As to the Potsdam Declaration, Abe said he did not notice the part in the declaration which called on Japan's unconditional surrender, adding that accepting the declaration was a way that Japan ended the war.

"If Abe cannot accept the assertion that Japan waged war to conquer the world, he should have clearly said so and then should have expressed his own view on Japan's war," said the editorial.

"By evading the question, he (Abe) gave the impression that he is trying to avoid making public what he really thinks about Japan 's war," it commented.

The Japan Times, a Japanese independent English-language daily, continued that "without making clear his perception of Japan's wartime behavior, however, it will be difficult for the prime minister to dispel suspicions held by China and South Korea, as well as by other members of the international community, that he in fact wants to justify the nation's wartime aggression."

The Japanese prime minister, who is widely seen as a historical revisionist, is expected to issue a statement to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII in summer and he reiterated that he will not use the same key words such as "aggression and colonial rule" and "heartfelt apology" in his "future-oriented" statement to refer to Japan's wartime barbarities.

In speeches in Indonesia and the U.S. Congress in April, Abe avoided mentioning the key words which serve as the foundation of the Murayama Statement which admits that Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war and caused agonies to its Asian neighboring countries.

Prominent world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, urged Japan to seek reconciliation with its neighbors by facing up to its wartime history.