Two former leaders who issued historic apologies for the nation's past lambasted revisionist attempts to rewrite history on Tuesday, urging Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to stand by the statements they delivered when they were in office.

In a joint appearance at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono and former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama went on to urge the administration to withdraw its contentious security-related bills from the Diet.

In 1993, Kono issued an apology for Japan's use of "comfort women," females forced to work at Japanese wartime brothels, and Murayama in 1995 delivered an apology for Japan's aggression against other Asian countries and for its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.