Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday expressed deep regret over South Korean victims of wartime forced labor taking legal steps to seize the assets of a Japanese firm.

During NHK's "Sunday Debate" program, Abe said he "deeply regrets" the fact that South Korean victims of forced labor are trying to seize a Japanese company's assets to receive compensation.

Abe said that the Tokyo government is taking this issue seriously, adding he has ordered related ministries to review specific measures regarding the case in order to take actions based on international laws.

The prime minister repeated Japan's official position that a 1965 normalization treaty signed between Seoul and Tokyo put all colonial-era liability issues to rest, saying that South Korea's recent rulings are unacceptable in light of international law.

Last year, South Korea's Supreme Court ordered Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate South Korean victims forced into hard labor during Tokyo's colonial rule of Korea.