House may delay 'comfort women' resolution for Abe

BEIJING (Kyodo) A vote on a U.S. House of Representatives resolution seeking an apology from Japan for forcing women into sexual servitude during the war will probably take place only in May to avoid marring Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's U.S. visit this month, the head of a panel weighing the motion said.

"We're planning on considering it after Prime Minister Abe's visit," Eni Faleomavaega, head of a House Foreign Affairs Committee panel, told reporters Thursday in Beijing when asked about the timing of the vote. "So it will be, probably, sometime next month."

The resolution calls for Tokyo to apologize for forcing women and girls across Japanese-occupied Asia to provide sex for its soldiers during the war.

Abe drew heavy criticism when he suggested recently that there was no evidence to prove the military coerced women into sexual slavery.

The prime minister, however, later reiterated that he will stand by a 1993 apology issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono that acknowledged the Japanese military's involvement.

"Unfortunately, there is a lot . . . of feelings even among the leaders of Japan that this never happened," Faleomavaega, a Democrat from American Samoa, said at a press conference earlier.

"The whole idea to do something so base as this against any woman, I think this is something that ought to prick the conscience of the world community," he said.

Faleomavaega, however, noted that Abe would be visiting the United States shortly and that the panel is "not going to take a cheap shot and suggest that we're going to do something to stir the controversy."

Deliberations will continue, however, within Congress on how it is going to proceed with the resolution, he said.