TOKYO, March 07, 2014 (AFP) - A group of Japanese historians on Friday stood behind their government's 1993 apology over wartime sex slavery, slamming Tokyo's possible move to revise it as "unforgivable".

The landmark apology, known as the Kono Statement, acknowledged official complicity in the coercion of women from across Asia into a system of wartime brothels, an issue that draws particular resentment in neighbouring South Korea....

"It is unforgivable to retreat from the Kono Statement," Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a professor of modern Japanese history at Chuo University, told academics and rights activists at a Tokyo conference.

"The latest historical documents can allow us to say that the military hurt the honour and dignity of many women."...