A senior US official said yesterday Japan should find a way to try to resolve World War II disputes with its neighbors such as China and South Korea.

"Japan, as a modern democratic nation, needs to find a way to place these issues behind it so it can move forward in cooperation with its neighbors," said Dennis Wilder, US President George W. Bush's top East Asia policy adviser, said at a briefing.

Wilder made the remarks one day ahead of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the White House. This is the first visit to the United States by Abe since he took office.

Nonetheless, Wilder said Bush believes Abe "has done a lot" to clear up the misunderstandings in the last couple of weeks on this issue of so-called "comfort women."

Abe has indicated that the official position of Japan has not changed and that he personally apologizes for the horrible things that happened to those women, Wilder said.

Abe repeated his apology recently over then Japanese government and army's involvement in the forced recruitment of women from other Asian countries to provide sex to Japanese servicemen during World War II.

This is cache, read story here