March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said a resolution filed to the U.S. House of Representatives calling on Japan to acknowledge and apologize for forcing women into sexual slavery during World War II lacks ``objective facts.''

``The resolution is not based on objective facts,'' Abe said in a budgetary meeting in Tokyo today. He didn't elaborate on the statement, adding that Japan is trying to explain its position to the U.S.

Abe on March 1 said there is ``no evidence'' Japan's military forced women into prostitution during its occupation of Asia in World War II. That statement brought protests from South Korea and clashed with a 1993 study by Japan's Cabinet Office that said women ``were recruited against their own will.''

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono said in a statement at the time the government offered ``its sincere apologies and remorse.'' Abe said today Kono's statement on the so-called ``comfort women'' still stands. He didn't elaborate.

Kono's apology was never adopted by parliament. A group of about 120 members of the Liberal Democratic Party want the government to overturn the 1993 apology.

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min Soon, speaking in Washington on March 2, termed Abe's comments ``not helpful'' to relations between their countries, and said the Japanese prime minister ``should face the truth,'' about his country's past.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry released a separate statement the next day saying Abe's comment's ``aimed at glossing over the historical truth and our government expresses strong regret.''

``Our stance hasn't changed from our initial statement,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Ryoo Joohan said, following Abe's comments today. ``We are closely monitoring the developments.''

Slaves

Japanese historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki, in his 1995 book `Comfort Women,' estimates as many as 200,000 women from Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia and Burma served as sex slaves in 2,000 brothels across Asia. References to the practice were removed from eight Japanese school textbooks in 2005, prompting protests from South Korea.

Mike Honda, a Democratic congressman from California, has introduced the resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives calling on Japan to formally acknowledge and apologize for forcing women into sexual slavery.

``The Japanese government is saying there was no coercion but as a living victim I would like to say that this was a coerced experience,'' Lee Yong Soo, a former comfort woman who gave testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee last month, told reporters on March 2 in Tokyo.

Lee, a Korean woman aged 78, says she was forced into sexual slavery at the age of 14.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kanoko Matsuyama in Tokyo at at kmatsuyama2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 5, 2007 04:04 EST