Former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, known for his apology for past wartime atrocities while in office, said Tuesday that Japan should gain trust from Asian neighbours, stressing the need for Japan's fulfillment of its past apology.
Murayama, who came here for a three-day visit at the invitation of South Korea's minor opposition Justice Party, visited the parliamentary headquarters where an exhibition of artworks by former South Korean "comfort women" is being held.
At the exhibition, the former Japanese prime minister met three South Korean women who were coerced into sex slaves at the Japanese military brothel during the World War II, when more than 200,000 young women, many of them South Koreans, were forced into the sex slavery.
He became the first among incumbent and former Japanese prime ministers who met the victims of the sex slavery.
Murayama had made an official apology via the famous "Murayama Statement"in 1995, when he was in office, for Japan's past atrocities and war of aggression during its colonial rule of Asian nations.