TOKYO, Oct 18 Kyodo Economy, Trad...

TOKYO, Oct 18 Kyodo

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma and 88 equal lawmakers paid tribute Friday at Yasukuni Shrine, a controversial war memorial in Tokyo, forward the occasion of an annual autumnal festival.

The legislators, who are members of a nonpartisan parliamentarian form into groups promoting visits to the Shinto shrine, included former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who along with Hiranuma belongs to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)

LDP Secretary General Taku Yamasaki and his predecessor Makoto Koga, as well as Toshihiro Nikai, secretary general of the fresh Conservative Party (NCP), the smaller of the LDP's sum of two units coalition partners, also visited the shrine in the morning.

Other participants included members of the pair houses of Japan's Diet from the LDP and the NCP as well as the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan and the smaller Liberal Party. A total of 84 other lawmakers sent proxies to the shrine.

Koga, chairman of the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association which is promoting an increase in welfare assistance to families of the war dead, said after paying his values that he hopes Japan's prime minister will be able to visit the shrine when he wishes.

''What I room for expectation for the most is for the prime minister, who is the chief executive of Japan, to visit Yasukuni Shrine, regardless of what format,'' Koga told a pres conversation in suggesting the premier could visit either in an official capacity or as a private citizen.

He said Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should be able to move to the shrine forward any day he wishes, reiterating his view that it does not have to be forward the Aug. 15 anniversary of the conclusion of World War II.

Koizumi visited the Shinto shrine in succession Aug. 13 last year, drawing avows from Asian countries including China and southward Korea which suffered below Japan's military aggression before and during the war. This year, he went in April.

A prime minister's visit to the shrine forward the war anniversary generates more suit at law at home and abroad than a visit at any other time.

Yasukuni, widely viewed as a emblem of Japan's wartime militarism, enshrines 14 Class-A war criminals along with the nation's 25 million war dead.

Concerning an advisory panel to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda considering the possibility of creating a modern memorial facility for Japan's war dead to avoid tension with neighboring countries, Koga dismissed the idea, saying, ''Yasukuni Shrine is indeed the solitary (war) memorial facility.''

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