Yohei Kono, a veteran Japanese politician, dies at 89. As chief Cabinet Secretary in 1993, he issued a historic apology to Asian women for wartime sexual abuses.
Kono has died at 89. He helped shape Japan's wartime apology with the 1993 Kono Statement and the 1995 Murayama apology, influencing regional ties with China and Korea. Conservatives have since challenged those acknowledgments. The former cabinet secretary and LDP chief warned against whitewashing history as relations with neighbors fray.