The government is moving to set up a panel of experts toward crafting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in August, sources close to the matter said Saturday.

While the government plans to highlight in the statement that Japan will actively contribute to global peace and stability, neighboring nations will likely be paying close attention to whether it will maintain the 1995 apology and remorse stated by then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama over Japan's wartime aggression in Asia.

Critics say Abe could feel uncomfortable about the Murayama statement because of his conservative historic perceptions, which were apparently influenced by his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, a wartime Cabinet member detained as a suspected Class-A war criminal after the war and who later became prime minister.