OSAKA  (Kyodo) — The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has adopted a resolution condemning Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s remarks about Japan’s wartime system of military brothels, Osaka city officials said June 24
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Hashimoto, who co-heads the Japan Restoration Party, has come under fire for the remarks claiming the wartime brothels were “necessary” for soldiers.

San Francisco city’s Website said the resolution had been passed last June 18 and they informed Hashimoto June 20, according to the Osaka officials. Osaka and San Francisco are sister cities.

The resolution stated that the board “strongly condemns the attitude and statements of Mayor Toru Hashimoto of Osaka justifying the state-sponsored ‘comfort women’ system, which forced hundreds of thousands of Asian women into sexual servitude for the Japanese military.”

In the resolution, the board urged San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee to present the resolution to Hashimoto and the City Council of Osaka, and ask Hashimoto to publicly retract his remarks and apologize to the survivors of the system.

The resolution also stated that the board “expresses its profound and long-standing respect and affection for the people of Osaka and its desire and commitment to continue the friendship, cooperation, and exchange programs under the sister-city agreement signed in 1957.”

The Osaka city officials said they have yet to receive any information on the resolution from San Francisco authorities.

Hashimoto cancelled his planned visit to San Francisco and New York from June 10 after he received a letter from a senior San Francisco city official on May 22 that urged the mayor to do so due to the furor caused by his remarks.