TOKYO — A top official hinted Thursday that Japan’s newly installed conservative government might seek to revise a nearly two-decade-old official apology to women forced into sexual slavery during World War II, a move that would most likely outrage South Korea and possibly other former victims of Japanese militarism.

Speaking a day after the new cabinet was named, the official, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, who serves as the government’s top spokesman, refused to say clearly whether the new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, an outspoken nationalist, would uphold the 1993 apology.

Mr. Suga said at a news conference that it would be “desirable for experts and historians to study” the so-called Kono Statement, which acknowledged the Imperial Army’s involvement in forcing thousands of captured Asian and Dutch women to provide sex for Japanese soldiers. Most historians say the women were coerced and were not prostitutes, as Mr. Abe and other nationalists have claimed in the past.

Mr. Suga also said, however, that the Abe government would uphold a broader apology, issued in 1995 to observe the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, to all victims of Japan’s colonialism and aggression.

Mr. Abe, who also served as prime minister in 2006 and 2007, has never been shy about his right-wing agenda, which includes calls for textbooks with a more patriotic tone. But after watching his popularity plummet in his last term as mainstream Japanese bridled at his hawkish stands, some analysts have suggested that he might be more restrained this time.