Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga rejected on Tuesday a request from a ruling party colleague to issue a new document next year to replace a 1993 apology over women who were forced to work in Japanese wartime military brothels, ruling bloc lawmakers said.

Suga was quoted as telling Sanae Takaichi, head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council and a House of Representatives lawmaker, that he is "not thinking of a new statement" to replace the so-called Kono statement, the lawmakers said.

The statement, named after then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, contained a landmark apology to the sex slaves known euphemistically in Japan as "comfort women."