Osaka Mayor Reframes Comments on Wartime Brothels TOKYO - Seeking to quell an uproar over his recent comments suggesting that sexual slavery was a necessary evil in Japan's imperial past, a populist party leader said Monday that he had not meant to justify wartime brothels or deny the women's suffering at the hands of Japanese soldiers. But the politician, Toru Hashimoto, who is a co-leader of the opposition Japan Restoration Association and the mayor of Osaka, Japan's third-largest city, also argued that Japan was being unfairly singled out for its use of so-called comfort women, and that other nations needed to examine the mistreatment of women by their own militaries before pointing the finger at Tokyo. "We must express our deep remorse at the violation of the human rights of these women by Japanese soldiers in the past, and make our apology to the women," Mr. Hashimoto said, speaking to journalists at the Foreign Correspondents" Club of Japan. But, he added, "it is not a fair attitude to blame only Japan, as if the violation of human rights of women by soldiers were a problem unique to Japanese soldiers." The conduct of the Japanese military in Asia before and during World War II remains a highly charged topic in the region. Many of the country's neighbors say Japan has not properly atoned for its wartime atrocities, while segments of Japan's establishment feel that the country has been unfairly demonized. Some historians estimate that 200,000 women were rounded up across Asia to provide sex for the Japanese military. Other historians put that number in the tens of thousands and say the women served of their own will. Japan formally apologized to the women in 1993. Two South Korean women who served as "comfort women" canceled a meeting with Mr. Hashimoto last week, saying in a statement that they were heartbroken over the mayor's "outrageous comments." Historians say the women who served in Japan's military brothels came from the Korean Peninsula, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan, among other places. South Korea's foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, called Mr. Hashimoto's latests remarks "embarrassing and shameful," and said they would "further isolate Japan in the international community." Mr. Hashimoto charged that Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States were guilty of similar violations of women's rights in World War II, as were South Korean soldiers who served in the Vietnam War. He urged those countries to acknowledge their past on the issue before scrutinizing Japan's wartime history. He also invoked a belief shared by many Japanese, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, that there was no evidence to suggest that Japan's wartime government directly forced women to serve in the brothels. He brushed aside testimony to the contrary from a number of women who had been enslaved as unreliable. Mr. Hashimoto's comments followed those of a string of Japanese politicians who had recently challenged what they said was a distorted view of Japan's wartime history. Last month, Mr. Abe seemed to question whether Japan was the aggressor during the war, saying the definition of "invasion" was relative. But even Mr. Abe and his cabinet have distanced themselves from Mr. Hashimoto in recent weeks as he has tried to correct what he believes is an erroneous view of Japan's wartime history. Mr. Hashimoto's controversial remarks - sometimes in the form of an outpouring of posts on Twitter - have incited a furor from human rights groups here and have alienated much of the public. About 400 human rights activists staged a protest outside the Osaka city office this month, calling on Mr. Hashimoto to resign. After he made his initial remarks on "comfort women" on May 13, the State Department called them "outrageous and offensive." While the audience for Mr. Hashimoto's speech on Monday was made up of foreign journalists, his comments were as much a plea to domestic voters before parliamentary elections this summer as they were an attempt to sway global public opinion. Public approval ratings for Mr. Hashimoto, who was once seen as a possible contender for prime minister, have plummeted, and a smaller party has called off plans to cooperate with him in the coming elections, citing his remarks on women. During his speech, Mr. Hashimoto apologized for suggesting to a senior American military official stationed on the island of Okinawa that United States troops at bases there should make more use of the local adult entertainment industry to reduce sexual crimes against women. "That was not what I meant," Mr. Hashimoto said. My real intention was to prevent a mere handful of American soldiers from committing crimes. In attempting to act on my strong commitment to solving the problem in Okinawa stemming from crimes committed by a minority of U.S. soldiers, I made an inappropriate remark. Still, Mr. Hashimoto did not shy away from delving into his interpretation of wartime brothels. Many wartime brothels were run not by Japanese, but by local brokers on the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere, he said. And though some brothels were run by Japan's wartime military, he said the military's main task was to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases for the sake of the women. He stressed that while Japanese military boats and trucks were sometimes used to transport women to the brothels, the authorities themselves were not deeply involved in the coercion of women. He said he did not believe that Japan's actions amounted to human trafficking. Banri Kaieda, who leads the opposition Democratic Party, advised Mr. Hashimoto to stop talking before he made the situation even worse. "There is a Chinese saying, "You cannot wrap a fire with paper,' " Mr. Kaieda said at a news conference. With Mr. Hashimoto, he said, "it's as if he is trying to wrap it with oil instead."