TOKYO — Britain’s prime minister has urged Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, to answer questions in the U.S. about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Keir Starmer suggested Mountbatten-Windsor would not be sufficiently focused on Epstein’s victims if he did not accept an invitation to testify before the U.S. Congress about his past exchanges with the convicted sex offender, who died in 2019.

An email exchange dated August 2010, released by the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday, showed Epstein offered the then-Duke of York the opportunity to have dinner with a woman he described as “26, russian, clevere beautiful, trustworthy.” Mountbatten-Windsor replied: “That was quick! How are you? Good to be free?”

The exchange happened a year after Epstein was released from jail following a sentence for soliciting prostitution from a person under 18.

Another newly released file appears to show Mountbatten-Windsor crouching on all fours over an unknown woman.

Mountbatten-Windsor missed a November deadline to sit for a transcribed interview that was set by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

During a visit to China and Japan this week, Starmer was asked by reporters whether Mountbatten-Windsor should now apologize to Epstein’s victims and testify to Congress about what he knew.

The prime minister replied: “I have always approached this question with the victims of Epstein in mind. Epstein’s victims have to be the first priority,” he said.

“As for whether there should be an apology, that’s a matter for Andrew,” Starmer added.

“But yes, in terms of testifying, I have always said anybody who has got information should be prepared to share that information in whatever form they are asked to do that because you can’t be victim-centered if you’re not prepared to do that,” Starmer said.

In 2019, Mountbatten-Windsor was accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers, but he denied all allegations. Mountbatten-Windsor has faced a backlash for his friendship with Epstein, but has not been charged with a crime in either the U.K. or the U.S.

Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles in October amid continued scrutiny of his past friendship with Epstein.