CHINA / National
US lawmaker: Stop war shrine visits
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-16 09:21
A leading U.S. lawmaker wants Japan's prime minister to assure the United
States that he will scrap his controversial visits to a Tokyo war shrine.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi arrives at the Yasukuni Shrine
in Tokyo Monday, Oct. 17, 2005. [AP]
In a letter obtained Monday by The Associated Press, Rep. Henry Hyde
wrote that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visit to Yasukuni
Shrine has the potential to embarrass Congress and offend World War II
veterans if he goes there after a possible Koizumi speech next month
before U.S. lawmakers.
"It would be optimal if some prior assurance could be given to the
Congress and to America's World War II generation that such a sequence of
events will not take place," wrote Hyde, the Republican chairman of the
House of Representatives' International Relations Committee. He was a
young U.S. Naval officer in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
Yasukuni honors Japan's war dead, including war criminals, and Koizumi's
visits have infuriated Japan's neighbors, whose memories of Japanese
occupation remain raw.
Koizumi, a staunch U.S. ally who has said he will step down in September,
defends his visits to the shrine as a way to pray for peace. He has gone
every year since taking office in 2001 but has yet to visit this year.
Hyde's letter from late last month was addressed to the powerful Speaker
of the House, Rep. Dennis Hastert. Hastert's office would not comment on
the letter Monday.
In the letter, Hyde cited media reports that Koizumi could travel to the
United States in June and speak before a joint meeting of Congress.
He also referred to suggestions that Koizumi might visit Yasukuni around
August 15, the 61st anniversary of Japan's surrender in the war.
Hyde welcomed a visit by Koizumi to the United States. He said it "would
be an awkward juxtaposition of events," however, if, only weeks after
appearing before the U.S. Congress, Koizumi were to visit a shrine
honoring those who ordered the Japanese attack on U.S. forces at Pearl
Harbor.
A spokeswoman at the Japanese Embassy in Washington said she had no
information on Koizumi's coming trips to the United States.
The letter was reported Monday in the Japanese national daily Asahi
Shimbun.
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