NHK President Katsuto Momii asked a meeting of the broadcaster's board of directors earlier this month whether criticism of his apparent defense of Japan's wartime sex slavery was justified, NHK sources said Saturday.
Momii, who was assailed for his remarks last month on "comfort women," Japan's euphemistic term for women forcibly recruited to provide sex for its soldiers before and during the war, was quoted as asking NHK governors at the Feb. 12 meeting: "Did I make terrible gaffes?"
But one of the governors said that although Momii claimed to have reflected on his controversial remarks, in fact he "did not do so at all." Another governor said Momii "did not appear to think what he said at the news conference was wrong." Both spoke on condition of anonymity.