TOKYO - Former lower house speaker and Foreign Minister Yohei Kono, known for announcing the Japanese government's landmark apology over Korean "comfort women" forced to work in Japan's wartime military brothels, has died, people close to his family said Wednesday. He was 89.
As chief Cabinet secretary under then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa in 1993, Kono issued an official statement acknowledging the Japanese military's involvement in the recruitment of "comfort women," often through coercion, and in the operation of facilities where they were kept. The issue has long been a source of diplomatic friction between Tokyo and Seoul.
While the apology was rated highly for its contribution to improving ties between Japan and South Korea, he faced criticism that questioned the statement's objective grounds.
Kono, a former Liberal Democratic Party president, said in the statement, based on a government study, that what took place "severely injured the honor and dignity of many women," a large part of whom came from the Korean Peninsula, which was colonized by Japan between 1910 and 1945.
The statement said the government extends its "sincere apologies and remorse" to all those who "suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women."
In 2014, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government released a report on a study which pointed out that Japan worked closely with South Korea behind the scenes on the wording of the statement, prompting critics to call for its revision.
Long known as a leading dove among LDP members, Kono maintained that Japan should not revise its war-renouncing Constitution despite the party's long-held goal of constitutional revision. In a press conference held when he assumed the post of House of Representatives speaker in 2003, he stressed the need to carry over the memories of World War II.
"Many veteran lawmakers who experienced the war are now gone from the parliament. (The Diet) should become a bridge connecting the memories of people who underwent the war and the harsh postwar era to people in the new generation," he said.
A graduate of Waseda University and a former employee at a forerunner company of major trading house Marubeni Corp., Kono was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1967, following the death of his father Ichiro, a former construction minister.
In 1976, Kono left the LDP, criticizing its politics following the Lockheed bribery scandal. He then formed the New Liberal Club, serving as its chairman and later forming a coalition with the LDP. He disbanded the New Liberal Club and returned to the LDP in 1986.
After having served as the chief Cabinet secretary, Kono became LDP president in 1993 when the party fell from power. The LDP formed a coalition government with other parties the following year, but Kono never rose to the premiership.
He served as foreign minister in the coalition government and in the administrations of prime ministers Keizo Obuchi and Yoshiro Mori.
Kono had been the longest-serving lower house speaker in the history of Japan's constitutional government since the late 19th century, before Tadamori Oshima beat his record in 2020.
Due to hepatitis C, Kono underwent a liver transplant in 2002, receiving part of the liver of his son Taro, an LDP lawmaker who has served as foreign minister and defense minister.
