South Korea’s foreign minister on Monday cancelled his first trip to Tokyo after Japanese ministers visited a controversial shrine to the country’s war dead, news reports said.
Yun Byung Se was to meet his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida in Tokyo this week during a two-day visit.
He cancelled the trip after Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and other ministers visited the Yasukuni Shrine at the weekend, the Yonhap News Agency reported, citing an unnamed Foreign Ministry official in Seoul.
“Amid this kind of atmosphere, our stance is that it will be difficult to hold a productive discussion and Yun decided not to visit to Japan this time,” the official was quoted as saying.
The shrine is dedicated to Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, including 14 convicted Class A war criminals. Visits to the shrine by public figures provoke anger in China and Korea, both of which were invaded by Japan during 20{+t}{+h}-century conflicts.
Japan’s Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Yoshitaka Shindo visited on Saturday, the first cabinet minister to visit since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in late December.
Aso, who also serves as finance minister, offered prayers at the shrine on Sunday, along with Keiji Furuya, state minister in charge of the issue of North Korea’s abductions of Japanese nationals.
The shrine is regarded by some as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism, and visits to it as evidence of a lack of repentance.
It was last visited by a serving cabinet minister in October by a member of the now-opposition Democratic Party of Japan.