PYONGYANG, May 27 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Saturday slammed Japan for denying its history of conducting sexual slavery against Korean women during World War II.
A spokesman for the Korean Committee on Measures for the Sexual Slavery for Japanese Army and Drafting Victims said that the Japanese authorities are making "reckless distortion of history and evasion of responsibility for the past crimes" while rejecting a UN report on the past sexual slavery by Tokyo.
"The UN Committee Against Torture has released a report calling for re-examination of the agreement between Japan and South Korea over the issue of sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army," said the DPRK official organ that is specialized in reckoning Japan's enslavement of the Koreans during its colonial rule of the peninsula.
The UN report said the Japanese-South Korean agreement on the issue signed in 2015 is insufficient for re-instating the victims of sexual slavery system run by Japanese army during World War II.
Japan rejected the report, saying its agreement with South Korea was final and irreversible.
"The government of Japan slandered the report of the international body and justified, beautified its past crimes. This is a grave challenge to the world community as the report fairly reflects the world public opinion," said the DPRK's committee.
It urged Japan to "clearly understand that their reckless distortion of history and evasion of responsibility for the past crimes are improper acts of self-destruction."
Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and had enslaved the Koreans until it was defeated in 1945.
At least 200,000 Korean women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army as "comfort women" during the war, according to both the DPRK and South Korean historians.
