South Korea on Tuesday renewed its calls for Japan to make sincere efforts to "heal the wounds of history," such as its sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II.

Seoul's call came as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while on a tour to the Middle East, paid a visit Monday to Yad Vashem, a memorial in Jerusalem for the victims of the Holocaust. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Abe laid flowers at the memorial, saying that such tragedies as the Nazi genocide should not be repeated, but he did not make any mention about the suffering endured by Japan's neighboring countries due to Tokyo's aggression during the war.

Seoul's foreign ministry said that Abe's visit to the memorial was a meaningful act, but it again urged Tokyo to face up to its wartime history and make sincere efforts to resolve the sex slave issue.

"Japan should make efforts to heal the suffering of the living victims of Tokyo's wartime atrocities, including the so-called 'comfort women,' to make Abe's remarks be sincerely heard by the international community," foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kwang-il told a regular press briefing.

Japan has been reluctant to apologize for its wartime sex enslavement of Korean and other Asian women for its Imperial Army troops during the war. The sex slave issue is one of the most knotty matters in the bilateral ties between Seoul and Tokyo.

South Korea demands that Japan show sincerity by settling the issue "in a way that is agreeable to the living victims," including through an apology and compensation.

Japan has long dismissed Seoul's demands, claiming that all grievances related to its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula were settled through a 1965 treaty that normalized their bilateral ties. (Yonhap)