A Japanese cabinet minister was among thousands of people to visit a controversial war memorial in Tokyo as Japan marks 80 years since the end of World War II.
Agricultural Minister Shinjiro Koizumi on Friday paid his respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japan’s militaristic past.
He was joined by dozens of national and local politicians from the far-right “Japan First” Sanseito Party, according to local media.
The Shinto shrine was built in the 19th century to honour Japan’s war dead, but it is best known for enshrining 14 Japanese “class A” war criminals and 1,000 others also found guilty by an Allied tribunal after World War II.
The Yasukuni Shrine is considered a political lightning rod in East Asia, where memories of Japan’s wartime atrocities are not forgotten, but senior Japanese leaders have continued to visit over the years.
But the shrine was just one site where Japanese people gathered on Friday to mark 80 years since Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender in an August 15, 1945, radio broadcast.
Tokyo formally surrendered a few weeks later on September 2, 1945.
Japanese media reported that more than 4,000 people attended the National Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead in Tokyo, including Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
Ishiba spoke at the commemoration about the lessons Japan carried from the war.
“We should never repeat the devastation of war. We will never, ever make a mistake in choosing the path to take,” Ishiba said, according to Kyodo News.
Ishiba also spoke of Japan’s “remorse” over the war, marking the first time a Japanese prime minister used the term in more than a decade at a war memorial, the news outlet said.
Japan famously adopted a pacifist constitution after World War II, but wounds linger from decades of Japanese colonial rule in parts of Asia that lasted from 1895 to 1945.
The prime minister stopped short of directly mentioning Japan’s wartime aggression and the suffering it caused, a precedent set by past Japanese leaders, Kyodo said.
Japan’s Emperor Naruhito also attended the event, where he said he was “overcome with deep emotion” at Japan’s transformation since the end of World War II.
“It is my sincere hope that we carry on passing down the stories of the hardships endured during and after the war and continue in unity of spirit to seek peace and the happiness of the people in the future,” he said, according to Japanese media.
Japan last week also marked 80 years since the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people.
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