Former Japanese officials raps shrine visits
(Agencies)
Updated: 2006-05-29 10:54
TOKYO — Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said Sunday the next
premier should stay away from a controversial war shrine to mend fraying ties
with China and South Korea.
Former Japanese Prime
Minister Yoshiro Mori. [file] | And a former
Japanese government spokesman also sharply criticized Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi over visits to a Tokyo war shrine which have triggered a regional
diplomatic crisis, a national newspaper said on Sunday.
Two members of
Mori's faction within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Shinzo Abe and Yasuo
Fukuda, are preparing for a party leadership election in September, when
inbumbent Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi steps down.
The leader of the
ruling party automatically becomes the prime minister because it holds most
seats in parliament.
Since he came to power in 2001, Koizumi has
annually visited the Yasukuni shrine, which honors 2.5 million war dead
including 14 top war criminals and is seen by China and South Korea as a symbol
of militarism.
"If it's important to improve (the relations with South
Korea and China), it's better not to go” to the shrine, Mori said in a
television talk show.
Koizumi says that his visits are to honor all
victims of war and recommit Japan to pacifism. But they have infuriated victims
of Japan's wartime aggression, particularly China and South Korea.
"Prime Minister Koizumi says it's a matter of spirituality. But that has
become a matter of politics. This does not benefit Japan's national interest,”
Mori said.
Abe, chief cabinet secretary and seen as a front-runner
to succeed Koizumi, has said visits to the shrine will not be
part of his political platform.
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