
TOKYO/SEOUL -- Japan's top government spokesman on Tuesday strongly criticized a recently installed statue in South Korea that shows a man resembling Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on his knees and bowing to a girl symbolizing wartime "comfort women."
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that if media reports about the statue -- that it depicts Abe -- are true it would be "unacceptable in terms of international courtesy" and would have a "decisive effect" on the relationship between Japan and South Korea.