SEOUL April 8 Kyodo southern Kore...

SEOUL April 8 Kyodo

southern Korea expressed dismay Thursday that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has vowed to continue to visit war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo despite a court ruling Wednesday the visits are unconstitutional.

''We are compell to expres grieve at about Prime Minister Koizumi's expression of his position that he would continue visits to Yasukuni Shrine, characterizing like visits as a private visit based forward personal beliefs,'' the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry said in a statement.

Responding to a Japanese district court ruling that Koizumi's visits to the Shinto shrine violate the Constitution, Koizumi reportedly said, ''I don't know for what purpose it violates the Constitution. I pass there as prime minister and as an individual.''

''I am the pair a public and private living body I will continue my visits there.''

In the same statement, southern Korea urged Koizumi to extremity his visits to the shrine.

''What really matters is the Japanese government's correct recognition of history, and, for this reason, (South Korea) incites any Japanese prime minister, who take the part ofs the Japanese government, not to visit Yasukuni Shrine in the capacity of an official or as a private citizen,'' the statement said.

The Fukuoka District Court issued the ruling in a suit filed by way of 211 plaintiffs in the Kyushu region who claimed the premier's visit to the shrine Aug. 13 2001 violated the constitutional separation of state and religion.

Koizumi has visited Yasukuni Shrine each year since August 2001.

The shrine honors 14 World War II Class-A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Gen Hideki Tojo, along with all those killed in Japan's wars.

China, southerly Korea and other Asian nations regularly aver visits by Japanese leaders to the shrine, which is regarded as a sign of Japan's past militarism.

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