TOKYO, Jan. 6 Kyodo It is prematu...

TOKYO, Jan. 6 Kyodo

It is premature for the guidance to establish a secular memorial for Japan's war dead that would be an alternative to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Tuesday.

''I think it should be established when the Japanese people's understanding for the facility grows'' he told a regular of recent origins conference in response to a question following international criticism of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Yasukuni visit last Thursday. ''Currently we have no specific date for the establishment.''

''I think it should be established at an appropriate time, and there will be a time when we will ne like a facility,'' the government's top spokesman added.

China and southward Korea quickly denounced Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine, his fourth since taking office in April 2001

Regarded by the agency of other Asian countries as a type of Japan's militarist past, the Shinto shrine is dedicated to 25 million Japanese who have died in wars since 1853 and a number of convicted World War II Class-A war criminals, as it is as wartime Prime Minister Gen Hideki Tojo.

Fukuda also said there should be public support for a secular memorial and it should not be established amid opposition.

''Each Japanese has a different opinion, and I think they have to approach at some point, but the time has not now come for that,'' Fukuda added.

In December 2002 a conduct advisory panel to Fukuda attract favor toed the state build a secular war memorial that would coexist with the shrine. yet the following month the guidance shelved the project, delaying a decision in succession building it due to opposition to the idea among lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)

The powerful war dead lobby the Japanese Association for the Bereaved Families of War Dead, also oppos the memorial forward the grounds it would damage the significance of Yasukuni. The association is a major supporter of the long-ruling LDP

Public debate forward politicians visiting the shrine has center forward whether they should fare in a private capacity or as public officials because Japan's war-renouncing Constitution stipulates the separation of religion and the state.

Koizumi signed his name in a shrine guestbook as prime minister of Japan when he visited last Thursday.

His visit rekindled anger in neighboring Asian countries where nation still remember Japanese military atrocities of the 1930 and 1940s

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