Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday downplayed criticisms over his education minister’s remarks a day earlier and said there was nothing wrong with the minister calling Japan an “extremely homogenous” country. “I think he was referring to the fact that we have gotten along with each other fairly well so far,” Abe said when asked to comment on the remarks by education minister Bunmei Ibuki. “I don’t see any specific problem with that.”
