(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) China and South Korea on Tuesday again denounced Japanese lawmakers' mass visit to a controversial war-related shrine in Tokyo.
Earlier in the day, about 150 lawmakers and a Cabinet minister paid respect at the shrine, which honors 14 World War II leaders convicted as Class-A war criminals along with 2.5 million war dead. Separately, Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Yoshitaka Shindo, who visited the shrine on April 12, paid another visit.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry Qin Gang said the group visit to Yasukuni Shrine fuelled controversy over the shrine after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent ritual offering there, according to China's state-run Xinhua News Agency.
"The Yasukuni Shrine is a negative asset for Japan. If its leader is bent on holding this negative asset, it will become increasingly heavy," Qin was quoted as saying at a press briefing.
On Monday, the first day of the shrine's spring festival through Wednesday, Abe made the ritual offering out of his own pocket to Yasukuni shrine, but refrained from visiting there.
In Seoul, South Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young told a press conference that the government deplores the group visit to the Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese lawmakers, according to Yonhap News Agency.
"They are well aware what kind of facility the shrine is. It enshrines those who waged a war and destroyed the peace and glorifies (Japan's) war aggressions," Cho said. "Japan's current promises for future peace ring hollow." For the two countries and other Asian countries, which suffered from Japan's aggression in the early 20th century, Yasukuni Shrine is regarded as a symbol of Japan's past imperialism. The visits to the shrine by leading Japanese politicians have become a major obstacle in mending the relations between Japan and its neighboring two countries.
Abe visited the shrine last December, adding tensions to Japan's relations with China and South Korea, which had been already soured due to territorial disputes and differing perceptions of war-related history. He is the first premier in office to visit the controversial shrine since then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2006.
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