"We regret the visit by Prime Minister Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine this morning," Singapore's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, pointing out that the shrine visits provoke strong reactions in China, Korea and other parts of Asia.

"They thus are not helpful to the larger common interest of building closer relations and cooperation in East Asia, including Southeast Asia," the statement said. "We hope that this larger common interest which Japan undoubtedly shares will not be overlooked by Japan."

Koizumi made a pilgrimage Tuesday to the shrine, which commemorates Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals. The shrine is reviled by critics as a symbol of past Japanese militarism, and periodic visits by Japanese leaders have long been a sore point between Japan and the neighbors it occupied in the 1930s and '40s.

Though Singapore and Tokyo now have strong economic and diplomatic ties, the country was among Asian lands overrun by Japan in the first half of the 20th century. Japanese troops killed as many as 100,000 ethnic Chinese in Singapore.