Park urges Japan to face history ahead of Abe's address in U.S.

President Park Geun-hye urged Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to face up to history, according to an interview published Friday, ahead of Abe's address to the U.S. Congress.

"Japan should dispel concerns of its neighbors by demonstrating sincere actions on past history based on a correct recognition of history," Park said in an interview published Friday in Brazilian newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo.

She is in Brazil for a three-day state visit, the last stop on her four-nation swing to South America. The trip has already taken her to Colombia, Peru and Chile.

Park's comment is not new, but it comes just days before Abe is set to address a joint session of Congress.

Seoul and Tokyo have long been at odds over Japan's territorial claims to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo as well as the South Korean sex slaves.

South Korea has repeatedly pressed Japan to resolve the issue of the Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during World War II. Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 to 1945.

Still, Abe has described the sex slave issue as "human trafficking" without specifying the perpetrator in a recent interview with the Washington Post.

Tensions also linger between China and Japan over territorial and other history-related issues. Japan controlled much of China in the early part of the 20th century.

Separately, Park also told the newspaper that she will continue to cooperate with Brazil, noting Brazil can play an important role in coaxing North Korea to come to dialogue with the outside world.

Brazil has diplomatic relations with South and North Korea.

"I hope that North Korea will stop its threats and provocations against South Korea and respond to a call for dialogue in good faith," Park said in the interview.

The two Koreas last held high-level talks in February 2014.