TOKYO, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will continue honoring a 1993 statement on the issue of wartime sex slavery during World War II , his assistant said on Sunday.

    Hiroshige Seko made the remarks after Abe said Thursday that there was no evidence to prove that wartime sex slavery was run by Japan's government. The prime minister's remarks immediately drew wide criticism.

    Abe was quoted as saying by Jiji Press on Thursday "there is 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 the fact that Japan forced women from other Asian countries to be sex slaves for its aggression troops in 1930s and 1940s.

    "There are various definitions of coercion with some being strict and others being more broad, but (the premier's position of) following the 1993 statement issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono has not changed," Kyodo News quoted Seko as saying on TV Asahi.

    Since assuming the premiership, Abe has repeatedly said the government would honor the Kono statement.

    An estimated 200,000 women were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese forces during World War II, and most of them came from countries invaded by Japan at the time.