SEOUL, March 3 (Xinhua) -- The South Korean government on Saturday expressed "strong regret" over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's latest denial that the Japanese military had forced foreign women into sexual slavery during World War II.

    "Prime Minister Abe's March-1 remark denying the coercion of the comfort women in the Japanese military is glossing over historic truth, and our government expresses strong regret about this," the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

    According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, Abe on Thursday told Japanese press that there was "no evidence to prove there was coercion" exercised over the foreign women, euphemistically called "comfort women," who were forced to service Japanese soldiers in state-sponsored Japanese military brothels.

    In 1993, the then Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono issued the so-called Kono statement, officially acknowledging and apologizing for Japan setting up and running brothels for its aggressor troops throughout Asia in 1930s and 1940s.

    South Korea doubts whether the Abe administration can stick to its earlier promise to inherit the stance of the Kono statement, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said.

    It also urged Japanese political leaders to show a responsible attitude over the historic issues.

    According to Yonhap, about 200,000 women, mostly from Korea and other Asian nations, were forced to serve in the Japanese military brothels. The Korean peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.