Abe's irresponsible remarks in US trip draw domestic, international outcry

She said the Abe government failed to take advantage of chances to making a sincere apology for historical issues, such as comfort women victims, and strengthen trust with neighboring countries.

The speech also led to domestic criticism. Former Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama lashed out at the incumbent leader for his attempt to evade responsibility, saying the speech might decrease the world's trust in the country.

During Abe's visit to the United States, foreign and defense ministers of the two countries revised their guidelines for bilateral defense cooperation for the first time in 18 years and the renewed guidelines gave Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) a more proactive role in supporting the US forces overseas with a more flexible concept involving the "use of force."

In line with the updated defense guidelines, Abe said he will try to achieve the revision of a series of security-related laws so as to legalize the exercise of the right to self-defense, even before the amendment of the pacifist constitution.

His bid to emasculate and revise Japan's war-renouncing constitution encountered a mass protest in the country on Sunday.

Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese Nobel literature laureate, said during the pro-constitution gathering of some 30,000 people that Abe lied when addressing a joint session in the US Congress.

He said the prime minister hawked the idea around to foreigners that it is for fighting together with the United States that Japan approved for the SDF to exercise the right to collective defense and adopted unconstitutional revision of security-related legislation.

But back in Japan, he has made no explanation to the Japanese people and failed to get public support, Oe said.

The major figure in contemporary Japanese literature urged the Japanese people to protect the pacifist constitution and to oppose any legislation that may lead to war.