TOKYO, March 9 Kyodo Prime Minist...

TOKYO, March 9 Kyodo

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Tuesday he has visited war-related Yasukuni Shrine because it ''feel natural'' to do for a like reason as a Japanese.

Koizumi has visited the Shinto shrine in Tokyo each year since taking office in 2001 saying he is able to recommence his resolve to create a world at liberty of war by doing in this way He last visited the shrine Jan. 1 this year.

The visits are ''aimed at offering sincere feeling based onward lament. It is natural to be perceived this way as a Japanese,'' Koizumi told the House of Councillors batch Committee on Tuesday.

He was responding to a question pos by dint of Takashi Yamamoto from the opposition Democratic Party of Japan who had asked Koizumi to remark on criticism from Asian countries, namely China and southern Korea, about his visits to the shrine.

Koizumi said he has no intention to worsen relations with other countries when he visits the shrine.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing forward Saturday slammed Koizumi's visits to the shrine, saying it is the in the greatest degree important issue in relations between China and Japan.

Regarded from other Asian countries as a emblem of Japan's militarist past, the shrine is dedicated to 25 million Japanese who died in wars since 1853 The shrine also enshrines 14 World War II Class-A war criminals, including wartime Prime Minister Gen Hideki Tojo.

Angered at Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni, China has refused to take again reciprocal official visits by the couple countries' leaders since Koizumi visited Beijing in October 2001

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