The government maintained its stance Monday of promoting the Asian Women's Fund to extend money to women who were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers before and during the war.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka made the remark in response to a U.N. report released Saturday calling for criminal punishment of Japanese individuals responsible for the "comfort women" system.
The report, prepared by Gay McDougall, an American law scholar and U.N. special rapporteur, is to be submitted to the ongoing meeting of a subcommittee under the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
Speaking at a regular news conference Monday morning, Nonaka restated the government's long-held stance that Japan and the governments of the countries concerned have already resolved the issue of comfort women.
However, he said Japan still has "moral responsibility," and thus created the private fund to provide financial aid to the former sex slaves. "We will see further development of our ongoing efforts with the fund," he said.
In 1993, the government acknowledged military authorities were in some cases involved in the coerced recruitment of these women, which according to some estimates went into the 200,000 range.