S. Korea urges Abe to inherit right historical perception on WWII statement

South Korean President Park Geun-hye reiterated her call on Monday for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to inherit right perception of history at his upcoming statement to be issued later this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two.

"Taking the meaningful opportunity, the Japanese government should make it clear to completely inherit historical perception of previous cabinets and show a mature attitude to newly start relations with neighboring countries," Park said during a meeting with senior presidential secretaries.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's liberation from the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule and also the 50th anniversary of normalized diplomatic ties between Seoul and Tokyo, Park noted.

Her comments came ahead of the planned Abe statement on Friday when the prime minister is set to announce his 70th anniversary statement to apologize for Japan's war of aggression and colonization during WWII.

South Korea has called for Abe to include four key words, including war of aggression, colonization, apology and repentance, in the statement, inheriting historical perceptions of previous governments shown in former prime ministers' statements by Tomiichi Murayama in 1995 and by Junichiro Koizumi in 2005.

Her comments may have warned of no improvement in future relations between South Korea and Japan if Abe is not to clearly apologize for its past colonization of the Korean Peninsula. Park has refused to sit face-to-face with Abe since her inauguration in February 2013, citing his wrong perception of history.

Park also expressed her sorrow for the death of a South Korean victim of sex slavery under the Japanese colonial rule.

The 93-year-old South Korean woman, who was forced to serve as a sex slave for the Japanese military brothels during WWII, passed away on Saturday in the United States where she had been living under medical treatment along with her adopted son.

The deceased victim was lured into Japan's military brothels along with other six South Korean women, Park said, expressing her sorrow for failing to cure the pain and restore the honor and dignity of the dead.

The president said if the issue of comfort women, a euphemism for the victims of Japan's sex enslavement, could not be resolved this time, no opportunity would come forever given the old age of the victims.

With the death of the victim, the number of living South Korean comfort women reduced to 47 among 238 victims who identified themselves as former sex slaves. In 2015 alone, eight victims died of illness.

According to historians, at least 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were deceptively or forcibly mobilized to comfort stations of Japan's Imperial Army in Japan, China, Southeast Asia and islands of the South Pacific. Endi