Japanese PM Ishiba calls for 'remorse' during WWII ceremony
Aug. 15 (UPI) -- In an address at the National Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba called for remorse over Japan's actions during World War II.
"Eighty years have now passed since the war ended," Ishiba said in a speech Friday that Japanese prime ministers deliver each year at the memorial. "Today, generations with no firsthand experience of war make up the great majority. We must never again repeat the horrors of war."
"We must never again lose our way," he added. "We must now take deeply into our hearts once again our remorse and also the lessons learned from that war."
His predecessors Shinzo Abe, Yoshihide Suga and Fumio Kishida hadn't mentioned the word "remorse" when they delivered the prime minister's address annually since Abe first left out the word from his speech in 2013.
A tradition of including a recommendation of remorse had started with former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who in 1995, during the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, said in his address that he had "feelings of deep remorse" concerning Japanese past bellicosity.
He further offered an apology for Japan's past "colonial rule and aggression."
Murayama's 1995 address has since been viewed as an impactful speech known as "The Murayama Statement." Successive prime ministers had continued to mention remorse until Abe's 2013 presentation.
Japanese Emperor Naruhito also spoke during the ceremony Friday, and he too included the word and a need for repentance.
"Looking back on the long period of post-war peace, reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never again be repeated," he said.
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