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Koizumi to visit war shrine this year
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-08 19:38

A senior lawmaker in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling party said Sunday that the Japanese leader would pay his respects this year at a Tokyo war shrine where World War II criminals are honored.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi scratches his face as he boards his special flight to Russia at Tokyo's Haneda airport May 8, 2005. Koizumi flew out to Moscow on Sunday to attend ceremonies to mark 60th anniversary of the Russia's victory over Germany on World War Two, yet his own nation has yet to sign a peace treaty with the northern neighbour to formally end hostilities. [Reuters]

``I think Koizumi will visit the shrine again this year, while carefully considering the timing,'' Hidenao Nakagawa of the Liberal Democratic Party told a TV talk show.

Nakagawa's remarks came a day after Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing reiterated to Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura Beijing's displeasure at the Japanese prime minister's annual shrine visits. The two diplomats met Saturday in Japan's western city of Kyoto on the sidelines of a two-day Asia-Europe meeting to try to improve their rocky relations.

Koizumi has visited Yasukuni Shrine four times since becoming prime minister in April 2001.

It honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including wartime Prime Minister and convicted war criminal Hideki Tojo and Koizumi's annual pilgrimages have angered neighboring Asian nations who say the shrine glorifies the Japanese military's brutal wartime invasions in the region.

Another trip to Yasukuni shrine this year by Koizumi would be certain to anger China, South Korea and other countries in the region.

But LDP lawmaker Koichi Kato, a close ally of Koizumi, said halting the premier's shrine visits wouldn't help Japan-China ties. The only way to appease Beijing would be to find a different shrine for the convicted World War II criminals or set up another, secular war memorial, Kato said during the TV Asahi show.

Tokyo has been considering creating a secular memorial separate from Yasukuni, but the effort has stalled. Japan's only nonreligious facility for war dead is a tomb for unknown soldiers at Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Tokyo, which Koizumi also visits.

Separately on Sunday, Koizumi's special envoy Taku Yamasaki was in Beijing meeting China's vice premier, Huang Ju, to attempt to mend strained ties.

Yamasaki told Huang that it would be ``extremely difficult'' to remove the war criminals from among the war dead honored at Yasukuni, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.

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