N. Korea bashes Osaka mayor's justification of wartime 'comfort women'

Weeks after Japan's Osaka mayor made controversial remarks justifying Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of women from neighboring countries, North Korea on Wednesday denounced the comments to be "self-destructing" and "enraging."

In mid-May, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto said Japan's sexual enslavement during the World War II was necessary for Japanese soldiers fighting in life-threatening situations. The remarks immediately drew seething criticism from South Korea and China.

Historians say some 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were coerced into sexual servitude in front-line Japanese brothels during World War II. The Korean Peninsula was under Japan's brutal colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.

The issue of sexually enslaved women, widely called "comfort women," is a frequent source of tension between Japan and South Korea, along with territorial and history textbook disputes stemming from Japan's colonialism in the early part of the 20th century.

"The (Japanese) rightist force's scheme to avoid historical settlement is a self-destroying act," North Korea's state-run Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a statement.

"Japan's attitude toward the sexual enslavement is an urgent issue which is directly linked to the country's (responsibility) to apologize and compensate for what it has done to the mankind in the last century," the statement said.

The news agency also said Japan is "morally ruined" and is feared to repeat anti-humanistic acts that "could again thrust this planet into misfortunes."

The commentary came after Isao Iijima, an aide to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, made a surprise four-day visit to North Korea in mid-May as part of the two countries efforts to set up diplomatic ties. 

The North has long demanded Japan compensate its victims for war crimes and other damage inflicted during the colonial rule. (Yonhap News)