Home > World > World

North Korea denounces Japan prime minister's offering to war shrine

Published: 27 Apr. 2025, 14:00

A wooden plaque showing the name of Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, second from right, is seen with a ″masakaki″ tree that he sent as an offering to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on the first day of the Spring Festival in Tokyo on April 21. [AFP/YONHAP]

North Korea on Sunday criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for making a ritual offering to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, saying that it again demonstrated Japan's pursuit of militarization.

The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) issued the criticism after Ishiba sent an offering last week to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japanese war dead, including 14 Class A criminals convicted by the Allied forces after World War II.

A bipartisan group of Japanese lawmakers also visited the shrine in person to pay their respects at that time.

The KCNA denounced those actions by Japanese politicians as "the path to state militarization," saying they would only expedite the "memorial service" for the whole of Japan.

The KCNA accused Japanese politicians of regularizing their annual offerings and visits to Yasukuni, denouncing the moves as an attempt to spread the "toxin of militarism" across Japan.

It also claimed that Japan is in the final stage of legal, institutional and military preparations for a continental invasion, referring to the country's recent launch of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) Joint Operation Command and a push for a constitutional revision.

"A reinvasion by Japan, which has systematically and holistically pushed for political and military rearmament, is no longer a matter of anticipation but becoming a reality before our very eyes," the KCNA said.

Sending an offering or visiting the shrine has been a point of criticism from neighboring countries like South Korea and China, which view such actions as an attempt to glorify the country's militaristic past.

Japan invaded China during World War II and Korea was under Japan's colonial rule from 1910-45.

Yonhap