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96 Diet members pay joint visit to war-linked Yasukuni Shrine+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, April 21_(Kyodo) _ Ninety-six Diet members from various political parties jointly paid a visit Friday to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where 14 Class-A war criminals are enshrined along with more than 2 million Japanese war dead, as the shrine launched this year's three-day spring rites.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's yearly visit to the Shinto shrine has long been a source of friction with China and South Korea.
The shrine visitors were 87 lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, two from the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, and one each from two minor parties, the People's New Party and New Party Daichi.
Separately from the group, former House of Representatives Speaker Tamisuke Watanuki, leader of the People's New Party, also visited the shrine Friday.
No parliamentarians from the LDP's coalition partner, the New Komeito party, visited the shrine as the Buddhist-backed party is opposed to Koizumi's Yasukuni visits, saying they run counter to the Constitution's Article 20 that bans the state from engaging in religious activities.
Among the 96 visitors were six parliamentary secretaries of the Koizumi Cabinet -- Eriko Yamatani of the Cabinet Office, Ikuzo Sakurai of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Haruko Arimura of the education ministry, Kyoko Nishikawa of the health ministry, Toshifumi Kosehira of the agriculture ministry, and Wataru Takeshita of the Environment Ministry.
No Cabinet ministers or senior vice ministers were among them.
House of Representatives member Makoto Koga, a former LDP secretary general, told reporters after the shrine visit that no foreign leaders have the right to call for halting visits to the shrine by Japan's political leaders. "It is quite natural to pay respect for those who devoted their precious lives to the state of Japan."
Koga is the head of the Nippon Izokukai, an association of the bereaved families of Japan's war dead, which is one of the LDP's key support groups.
China and South Korea have refused to hold an exchange of top-level leaders with Japan in protest against Koizumi's annual visits to the shrine.
The 14 Class-A war criminals enshrined include wartime Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Koki Hirota and former Imperial Army Gen. Kenji Doihara, all of whom were hanged after World War II.
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