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Former Japanese Prime Minister Murayama, known for apology over wartime aggression, dies at 101

Published: 17 Oct. 2025, 15:20

Former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama poses in front of portraits of former leaders of his Social Democratic Party after an interview with Reuters at the party headquarters in Tokyo on March 10, 2015. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

Japan’s former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who was known for his 1995 “Murayama statement” apologizing to Asian victims of his country’s imperialist past, died Friday. He was 101.

Murayama died at a hospital in his hometown of Oita, southwestern Japan, according to a statement from Mizuho Fukushima, the head of Japan's Social Democratic Party.

As leader of what was then known as the Japan Socialist Party, Murayama led a coalition government from June 1994 to January 1996.

The apology he issued as prime minister on Aug. 15, 1995, marking the 50th anniversary of Japan's unconditional surrender ending World War II, is seen as Japan's main expression of remorse for its wartime and colonial past. All prime ministers subsequently endorsed it until nationalist Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stopped apologizing in 2013.

Murayama had criticized growing attempts by nationalist lawmakers to discredit the apology for wartime sexual slavery by citing the lack of contemporary official documents specifically stating that the government systematically forced women to provide sex to Japanese soldiers at military brothels.

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