Former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama answers questions during a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on July 29, 2015. Photo by KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP
Tokyo: Japan's former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama passed away today at the age of 101.
Murayama served as head of a coalition government from June 1994 to January 1996.
He is best remembered for issuing the "Murayama Statement' in 1995, in which he expressed "deep remorse and heartfelt apology" on behalf of the Japanese government for its wartime actions.
The statement became a benchmark for Tokyo's subsequent apologies over World War II and was cited by subsequent leaders as a moral standard in addressing wartime history.
