No Japanese Ministers Visit Yasukuni Shrine during Festival

Tokyo, Oct. 19 (Jiji Press)--No Japanese cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, were seen to have visited war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo during its three-day autumn festival that ended on Saturday.

Ishiba only made a ritual "masakaki" tree offering at the Shinto shrine, which is regarded as a symbol of Japan's past militarism by neighboring countries as it honors Class-A war criminals along with the war dead.

Only a few Liberal Democratic Party members visited the shrine in the middle of the official campaign period for the Oct. 27 election of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Japan's parliament. Among the handful was former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi.

A nonpartisan group of lawmakers to visit the shrine together is arranging to make a collective visit after the Lower House election.

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[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]