Kono Statement of 1993

The Kono Statement of 1993 was an apology to comfort women issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yōhei Kōno on August 4, 1993.

Criticism by Japanese conservatives
During the period when Shinzo Abe was Prime Minister of Japan his Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hakubun Shimomura called for an "objective" look at the Kono statement. In 2007 he said: "It is true that there were comfort women. I believe some parents may have sold their daughters. But it does not mean the Japanese army was involved."

At a press conference on March 1, 2007, then-Prime Minister Abe expressed doubts about the Kono statement, saying that there was "no proof" of coercion.

The conservative Yomiuri Shimbun in its August 16, 2012 editorial claimed of the that the Kono statement that "no documents that could prove there was any truth to what Kono had suggested have been found." The Yomiuri also wrote that" due to the existence of Kono's statement", the Japanese government cannot refute the claim that the Japanese military abducted Korean women and girls to use as comfort women. The newspaper found this to be "extremely problematic." Another editorial on August 30, 2012 stated that the statement "must be reviewed" because "no evidence proving the forcible recruitment of comfort women has been found".

On August 24, 2012 Tōru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka and leader of the Osaka Restoration Association, commented that there was no proof that the Japanese military had forcibly recruited comfort women.