Former prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, best known for his landmark apology for Japan's World War II aggression, has died aged 101.
Murayama issued the 1995 proclamation on the 50th anniversary of Japan's surrender, expressing "deep remorse" over the country's atrocities in Asia.
The statement became a benchmark for Tokyo's subsequent apologies over WWII.
"Tomiichi Murayama, the father of Japanese politics, passed away today at 11:28am at a hospital in Oita City at the age of 101," said Mizuho Fukushima on X.
Mr Fukushima is head of the Social Democratic Party, seen as the successor to Murayama's now-defunct Socialist Party.
Hiroyuki Takano, the secretary general of the Social Democratic Party in Oita, Murayama's hometown, told AFP he had been informed that the former premier died of old age.
He died in a local hospital, local media reported.
In the landmark statement in August 1995, Murayama said that "Japan … through its colonial rule and aggression caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations".
"In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I regard, in a spirit of humility, these irrefutable facts of history, and express here once again my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology," he added.
The phrases "deep remorse" and "heartfelt apology" were used by successive Japanese prime ministers when marking the 60th and 70th WWII anniversaries.
Murayama was elected as the prime minister in a coalition government that also included the Liberal Democratic Party, Japan's dominant postwar political force.
In a 2015 interview with public broadcaster NHK he called the military a "dreadful thing", describing how "rebellion or argument was absolutely forbidden".
He also recalled his difficult memories of the run-up to the end of the war when "food was already scarce and very few weapons remained".
"We had weapons made of bamboo. I wondered if we could wage war in this condition," he said at the time.
He was in office from 1994 to 1996, a turbulent period that saw a huge 1995 Kobe earthquake in western Japan and a sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway that killed more than a dozen people and injured more than 5,800.
From a fishing family
The tall, thin Murayama — who in his later years was known for his white, bushy eyebrows — was born in the southern prefecture of Oita, one of 11 children of a fisherman.
He was conscripted into the Japanese Imperial Army in 1944 while studying at university.
After graduating in 1946 he became secretary-general of a fisheries cooperative that he helped build into a union.
After serving in a prefectural assembly in southern Japan's Oita, he was elected to parliament's lower house in 1972.
In 1993, the Socialist Party joined in a pro-reform government after the LDP's devastating election loss.
Murayama was elected party leader later that year and prime minister in 1994.
He left politics in 2000, living modestly on his pension in southern Japan, where he kept fit by cycling.
AFP/Reuters
