Asia-Pacific

Japan PM indicates will visit shrine next week

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-08-08 19:28

Abe, who has supported Koizumi's visits, has repeatedly declined to confirm or deny whether he had visited the shrine.

SECULAR MEMORIAL

Earlier on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Aso -- a dark horse candidate to succeed Koizumi -- proposed making the shrine a secular, state-run memorial that the emperor could visit.

Aso, known as a diplomatic hawk who has offended China and South Korea in the past, said his plan was not aimed at mollifying foreign countries.

Instead, he hopes to resolve a domestic debate that flares up whenever a Japanese leader visits the shrine and has prevented the emperor from going there since 14 "Class A" war criminals were added to the lists of those honored at the shrine in 1978.

"It's about expressing our respect and gratitude for those who died for their country and praying for the peace of the souls of those who died...without all this fuss," Aso told a news conference.

Other politicians have suggested creating a new secular war memorial, enhancing an existing memorial for unknown soldiers, or removing the war criminals from the lists of those honored at Yasukuni as ways to resolve the diplomatic dilemma.

Shrine authorities have opposed all those ideas.

Yasukuni, founded in 1869 and funded by the state until 1945, was central to the wartime state Shintoism which mobilized the Japanese people to fight in the name of a divine emperor.