New | Japanese Minister Yoshitaka Shindo visits Yasukuni Shrine provoking China's ire
The visit comes six days after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's own visit enraged neighbours and allies
A Japanese cabinet minister visited a controversial war shrine in Tokyo on Wednesday, six days after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's own visit enraged Japan's neighbours and sparked criticism from Washington.
Yoshitaka Shindo, the minister of internal affairs and communication, visited Yasukuni shrine on New Year's Day as thousands of people attended Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples to pray for good fortune in 2014, Jiji and Kyodo news agencies said.
Last on Thursday Abe made his first visit as premier to the shrine, which honours Japan's war dead including several high-level officials executed for war crimes after World War II.
China and South Korea see it as a brutal reminder of Tokyo's imperialist past and wartime aggression, and its failure to repent for its history.
“I have paid the visit with feelings of reverence for people who lost their lives in war,” said Shindo, a grandson of Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who led the Japanese imperial army in the fierce battle with US forces on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima in the closing days of World War II.
“I have renewed my wish for peace, hoping that the war shall not be repeated again,” the 55-year-old told reporters at the shrine.