(Corrects paragraph 2 spelling of Koizumi’s first name)
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan marked the 80th anniversary of its World War Two defeat on Friday, with at least one cabinet minister joining thousands of visitors at a shrine that Japan’s Asian neighbours view as a symbol of its wartime aggression.
Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan’s agriculture minister and a contender in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race last year, arrived at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo early Friday, local media reported.
Among the 2.5 million war dead commemorated at the shrine are 14 wartime leaders convicted of the most serious war crimes, along with over 1,000 others found guilty by Allied tribunals after Japan’s 1945 defeat.
China and South Korea have criticised past visits by senior Japanese officials that they say gloss over Tokyo’s wartime actions and damage diplomatic ties. Supporters say the shrine honors all of Japan’s war dead, regardless of their roles.
No sitting Japanese prime minister has visited the shrine since Shinzo Abe in December 2013, drawing an expression of disappointment from then-U.S. President Barack Obama.
The last premier to visit on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender was Koizumi’s father, Junichiro Koizumi, in 2006.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday sent an offering to the shrine, Kyodo News reported. Another offering he made in October provoked criticism from both South Korea, a Japanese colony for 35 years, and China, whose territories were occupied by Japanese forces in World War Two.
Ishiba is expected to meet South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung when he visits Japan from August 23-24 to discuss regional security and trilateral ties with the U.S.
While relations between Tokyo and Seoul have often been strained, in recent years the two countries have deepened security cooperation to counter China’s growing influence and the threat posed to both by nuclear-armed North Korea.
Koizumi was joined at Yasukuni on Friday by Takayuki Kobayashi, local media reported. A former economic security minister, he also ran in last year’s LDP leadership election.
As many as 60 national and local lawmakers from Japan’s far-right Sanseito Party are also expected at Yasukuni. The ‘Japanese First’ party wants to curb immigration, which it says is a threat to Japanese culture.
In July’s upper house election, it won 13 new seats, drawing support away from Ishiba’s LDP.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly, Irene Wang and Joseph Campbell; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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