Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should apologize in unequivocal terms for the country's sexual enslavement of women during World War II if he delivers a speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, a former American lawmaker said Tuesday.

Eni Faleomavaega, who served as a member of the House of Representatives for 25 years before retirement this year, issued the call in an article contributed to the newspaper Hill, saying the House chamber, where Abe could make a speech, is where a landmark 2007 House resolution on sexual slavery victims passed.

The chamber is also where President Franklin Roosevelt gave his renowned "date which will live in infamy" speech the day after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, he said.

"If Abe is invited to speak in a chamber of historic significance, it would be only fitting and proper for him to bring final closure to certain historic issues regarding the Second World War," Faleomavaega said.

"Abe could use the occasion of his visit to the American Congress to formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historic responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for the historic human rights violations committed against the Comfort Women," he said.

Though most victims have died, survivors deserve justice and closure in their final days, the former lawmaker said.

"They have waited too long. It is time for Japan to apologize," he said.

Abe could also reaffirm Japan's 1995 statement of apology, known as the Murayama Statement, where the country apologized for its imperialistic past. The nationalist prime minister has been accused of trying to revise the apology statement.

"A reaffirmation of this official apology for the aggression of the Pacific War at the site where President Roosevelt spoke would make a deep impression not only on members of Congress but on the American people, the Comfort Women survivors and other neighbors in Asia," Faleomavaega said.

"Such a sincere apology would be an act of true statesmanship. And it would go a long way toward providing some comfort to the Comfort Women survivors," he added.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea and China, were forced to work at front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during World War II. Korea was a colony of Japan from 1910 to 1945.

The sexual slavery issue has been the biggest thorn in frayed relations between Japan and South Korea, with Seoul demanding Japan take steps to address the grievances of elderly Korean victims of the atrocity and Japan refusing to do so. (Yonhap)