Japan has done enough to resolve grievances over the country's wartime sexual enslavement of women, a Japanese diplomat was quoted as saying Thursday, an indication Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is unlikely to offer a new apology when he visits the United States next week.

Masato Otaka, a spokesman for the Japanese Embassy, made the remark to the Washington Post, saying Tokyo has made statements of apology and remorse, paid "atonement money" to some victims through a civilian fund and sent letters of apology to victims.

"Japan has apologized over and over, on various occasions," Otaka was quoted as saying. "We have done our best, and I can't think of anything better than sending personal letters to the victims, but the South Koreans are still telling us we didn't go far enough."

Such a position is not new, but the remark, made on record, strongly suggests that Abe will likely snub calls from victims and others for an honest and clear apology during his visit to the U.S., which includes an address to a joint session of Congress.

Such an address will be a first for a Japanese prime minister.

For decades, Japan has offered a number of apologies over its 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea as well as the sexual slavery and other crimes. But those apologies never stood long, with Japanese leaders and politicians taking steps or making remarks backtracking on and raising questions about the sincerity of those apologies.

Abe's cabinet, for example, angered South Korea last year with its attempt to "review" the country's 1993 apology for the sexual slavery, known as the "Kono Statement." Though Japan said it still stands by the apology, the move was seen as an attempt to undermine the apology's credibility.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea, which was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during World War II. But Japan has long attempted to water down the atrocity.

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

Abe's weeklong trip is seen as a bellwether of Seoul-Tokyo ties amid widespread views that the relations are unlikely to improve unless he offers a sincere apology for Japan's imperialistic past and wartime atrocities. (Yonhap)