MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s visit to Japan next week is unlikely to tackle the issue of Filipino "comfort women" who were forcibly taken by the Japanese army as sex slaves during the war, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on Wednesday.

"We don’t expect it to be raised," DFA Assistant Secretary Nathaniel Imperial said in a Palace press briefing.

Compensation claims from survivors of the Japanese military's sexual slavery during World War II "are considered to be already settled, as far as the government is concerned," said the official.

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"All war-related claims are deemed to have been settled by our 1956 reparations agreements with Japan," he added.

However, the government will "not prevent private claims should such actions be pursued by victims," Imperial said.

"We will not stop, of course, the victims because this is an atrocious violence against women during the war. But as far as the government is concerned, we have already signed the reparations agreements to Japan in 1956," he said.

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Surviving Filipino comfort women on Tuesday called for justice and demanded the Japanese government's formal apology.

Mainstream historians say up to 200,000 women -- mostly from Korea, but also other parts of Asia including China and the Philippines -- were forced to work in Japanese military brothels during World War II.

In 2001, then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi wrote a personal letter apologizing to all comfort women.

— With a report from Agence France-Presse

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