hankyoreh

A group of Japanese ruling and opposition lawmakers visited the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine on Monday, the final day of its three-day spring festival, Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported.

The 39 lawmakers belong to a supra-party group of parliamentarians promoting visits to the shrine in Tokyo, which honors 14 World War II Class-A war criminals along with 2.5 million war dead.

The group comprised 37 lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and two from the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, including two in senior government posts, Kyodo News said.

In April last year, 96 Diet members from various political parties paid a visit to the shrine.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stopped short of joining the group, apparently out of diplomatic considerations. In March, Abe drew a public uproar from Asian neighbors and even from the United States by saying that there is no direct evidence to prove that women were coerced into sexual servitude for frontline Japanese soldiers during World War II.

Abe is also set to travel to Washington on Thursday for talks with U.S. President George W. Bush.

The group's leader Yoshinobu Shimomura, when asked by reporters if the group thinks the Japanese prime minister should visit the shrine, was quoted by Kyodo as saying Prime Minister Shinzo Abe "should judge himself. He has his own ways of thinking, and it wouldn't be his own will if he visits after we tell him to do so."

Abe also voiced objection to the idea of separating the war criminals from the war dead in the shrine, which has been discussed as part of ways to improve ties with South Korea and China.

The visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders have caused diplomatic disputes with South Korea, China and other Asian nations that suffered Japanese wartime aggression.

Prime Minister Abe, who visited the shrine a year ago as chief cabinet secretary before succeeding Junichiro Koizumi, has refused to make it clear whether or not he will visit the shrine.

Repeated visits to the shrine by Koizumi enraged Seoul and Beijing, which viewed Japanese leaders' shrine visits as symbolic of an unrepentant Japanese attitude toward its past militarism.

Tokyo, April 23 (Yonhap News)