Ex-lower house speaker Kono, known for apology to "comfort women," dies

TOKYO - Former lower house speaker and Foreign Minister Yohei Kono, known for announcing the Japanese government's landmark apology over Korean "comfort women" forced to work in Japan's wartime military brothels, has died, people close to his family said Wednesday. He was 89.

As chief Cabinet secretary under then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa in 1993, Kono, who died Monday, issued an official statement acknowledging the Japanese military's involvement in the recruitment of "comfort women," often through coercion, and in the operation of facilities where they were kept.