Japanese emperor Akihito has for the first time expressed “deep remorse” over Japan’s role in World War Two.<\/p>\n
He was speaking at a ceremony to mark 70 years since his country surrendered.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the Japanese service personnel who died had “sacrificed their futures”, but on Friday he was accused of failing to properly atone for Japan’s actions.<\/p>\n
A service was also held at the US naval base of Pearl Harbor, where the conflict began in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
More than 2,000 people were killed in the surprise Japanese attack in 1941, which drew the US into the war.<\/p>\n
Members of the US Navy and dignitaries from the US and Japan laid wreaths and unveiled a new plaque at the scene.<\/p>\n
At the memorial service in Tokyo on Saturday, Mr Abe and Emperor Akihito observed a minute’s silence.<\/p>\n
Emperor Akihito struck a more apologetic tone than Mr Abe, with an expression of remorse for the nation’s wartime aggression.<\/p>\n
“I attend this memorial ceremony with a deep and renewed sense of sorrow… I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never be repeated,” he added.<\/p>\n
The prime minister said the country would “always reflect the past and hate the horror of the war”.<\/p>\n
But in a statement on Friday he stopped short of issuing a fresh apology to the victims of Japanese aggression, angering South Korea and China.<\/p>\n
He said that future generations should not be “predestined to apologise” for their country’s wartime actions.<\/p>\n
South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the Japanese premier’s remarks “left much to be desired”.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Saturday at a ceremony in Seoul, Ms Park called on Mr Abe to reiterate Japan’s apologies for abuses during its wartime occupations of neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n
“History can never be covered up. History remains alive through its witnesses’ vivid testimony,” she said.<\/p>\n
This day is always controversial and still divides Japan, even 70 years after the war.<\/p>\n
Many people have different views over what happened during WW2 and about Japan’s defeat.<\/p>\n
At the Yasukuni shrine, where Japan commemorates its war dead, thousands of people have been coming to pray.<\/p>\n
But also enshrined here are the souls of 12 Class A war criminals; essentially the men who led Japan during the war.<\/p>\n
This place is therefore deeply controversial. We have seen nationalists, right wing and paramilitary groups marching in, bowing and praying – not just for the war dead about for the war criminals who they consider to be martyrs.<\/p>\n
Japan’s surrender to the allies on 15 August 1945 freed the then-unified Korea from 35 years of occupation, leading Koreans to celebrate the date as Liberation Day.<\/p>\n
Ms Park also called on Japan to resolve, “at the earliest possible date”, the issue of so-called “comfort women” – Asian women forced to work as sex slaves for the military in Japanese wartime brothels.<\/p>\n
A spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry said on Saturday that Japan should have made a “sincere apology to the people of victim countries … rather than being evasive on this major issue of principle”.<\/p>\n
Mr Abe did not visit Japan’s controversial Yasukuni war shrine this year, as he has in previous years, although there were commemorations at the site.<\/p>\n
The shrine has been criticised by China and South Korea because along with Japan’s war dead it honours leaders who were later convicted of war crimes.<\/p>\n
They include General Hideki Tojo, who authorised the attack on Pearl Harbor and drew the US in to the war.<\/p>\n
As well as commemorations that seek to consign wartime atrocities to the past, there will be events that highlight ongoing tensions in the region.<\/p>\n
Thousands of South Korean protesters are expected to hold an anti-Japanese rally on Saturday. This past week a Korean protester set fire to himself outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul.<\/p>\n
And in North Korea, clocks were set back 30 minutes on Saturday to so-called Pyongyang time to remove the country from a shared timezone established under Japanese colonial rule.<\/p>\n
In 1995, then-Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a landmark apology for Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression”.<\/p>\n
His sentiments were repeated 10 years later by then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.<\/p>\n
\n–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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