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Japan's government on Tuesday issued an apology for the country's past colonial rule of the Korean peninsula ahead of the August 29 centenary of the annexation.

In a statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan expressed deep regret over the suffering inflicted during Japan's colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.

The apology, approved by Kan's centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) at a cabinet meeting Tuesday, was timed to also precede South Korea's celebration of its 1945 liberation on August 15.

Kan expressed his "feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology for the tremendous damage and suffering brought by the colonial rule".

"Through the colonial rule that was against their will... the people of Korea were deprived of their nation and culture and their ethnic pride was deeply hurt," Kan said.

Successive Japanese prime ministers in recent decades have expressed regret for the country's wartime aggression in Asia, including a landmark 1995 statement issued by then prime minister Tomiichi Murayama.

But such sentiments have been dismissed as insincere by Asian neighbours, partly because of comments made by some conservative lawmakers who refuse to admit to Japan's past aggression.

In a statement issued on August 15, 1995, Murayama, only the second socialist to head a Japanese government, expressed "deep remorse" and offered a "heartfelt apology" to Asian nations.

Kan said on Tuesday that he sought to "build a future-oriented relationship" with South Korea.

Last week Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku, once a lawyer who worked for the rights of ethnic Koreans in Japan, said the government should consider compensating individuals for the colonial rule.

But this comment has further angered many conservative politicians, some in the ruling party, who believed a new statement would be redundant and add to Japan's "diplomacy of apology".

Japan colonised Korea from 1910, signing an annexation treaty on August 22 which took effect on August 29 that year.

The annexation ended on August 15, 1945, when Japan surrendered to the US-led allies in World War II. The Korean peninsula was then divided into a communist North and a capitalist South.

Japan and South Korea normalised relations in 1965 with Tokyo extending massive economic aid to Seoul, which agreed not to demand reparations for the colonial rule.

AFP/jm