US veterans urge Abe to apologise for war crimes in speech to Congress

Former US prisoners of war are demanding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "acknowledge Japan's historical responsibilities" when he becomes the first Japanese leader to address a joint session of the US Congress next month.

Abe will be paying a state visit to Washington to discuss bilateral economic and security issues, but the content of his address to the Congress - in a year that marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war - will be closely watched.

In an address to the Australian parliament in July 2014, Abe expressed "his most sincere condolences" for the loss of life in the war and it is likely he will make a similar apology in Washington.

That may not be adequate for the shrinking band of survivors of Japan's notorious POW camps.

Abe has "a unique opportunity to acknowledge Japan's historical responsibilities," Jan Thompson, president of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society, told a joint hearing of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and the House Veterans' Affairs Committee in Washington on Wednesday.

"His past statements rejecting the verdicts of Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal that serves as the foundation of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan trouble us," Thompson said. "We want Congress to only extend the invitation to Prime Minister Abe to speak at the podium of Roosevelt and Churchill if they are assured that he will acknowledge that Japan's defeat released the country from the venom of fascism and the inhuman goals of a criminal regime.

"By doing so, the Japanese prime minister's speech to Congress can be a historic one of reconciliation of which the first step is acknowledgement," he added.