Abe offers message of peace and reconciliation

Tokyo

JAPANESE Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday made a verbal gesture of bowing deeply before Asia and the rest of the world over wartime sufferings he acknowledged that Japan had inflicted. But he stopped short of using the explicit term "aggression", while also "upholding" past apologies rather than issuing new ones.

In a statement marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in the Asia-Pacific region, Mr Abe also insisted that future Japanese generations must not be "pre-destined to apologise" for acts for which they bear no direct responsibility. Japan's responsibility must be to help build future peace in Asia, he said.