A two-day symposium opened here Friday to examine war crimes by Japanese forces against Koreans, Chinese and other Asians, notably the use of sex slaves -- known as "comfort women" -- for the military.

About 80 participants from North and South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and the United States were expected to show up for the Asian Regional Symposium to Demand Japan's Atonement for the Past.

Hong Son Ok, head of a North Korean organization known as the Korean Measure Committee on Compensation for Comfort Women for Army and Victims of the Pacific War, the sponsor of the gathering, was expected to propose that an international body be created to demand reparations for Japan's war atrocities.

"Our power lies in solidarity and unity," Hong said in an advance text of her keynote speech.

Hong said international pressure would help speed up their campaign to press the Japanese government to pay reparations.

"If there is an international consultative body, we will be able to discuss and organize on an international scale our efforts to push for Japan's postwar reparations," the text says.

Hong also strongly criticized Japan's "distortion" of its past in history textbooks that she said "reflects Japan's attempt to escape from its responsibility for crimes committed during its past."

Participants from abroad were expected to address the meeting following Hong's keynote speech.

The afternoon session was to feature testimony by former comfort women, including a number from South Korea, and former forced laborers recruited by the wartime Japanese government.

It is the first time that North Korea has invited former comfort women from South Korea to visit the North.