Seventy-four Diet members, including a Cabinet minister, visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Tuesday during its annual spring festival.
According to a Diet group seeking to promote worship at the shrine, Takeo Hiranuma, the minister of economy, trade and industry, joined 73 other Diet members and 108 proxies representing lawmakers in visiting the shrine.
The Diet members included people from the Liberal Democratic Party, the New Conservative Party, the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Party, as well as some independents.
Among the prominent figures to visit the shrine were LDP member Ryutaro Hashimoto, a former prime minister; LDP Secretary General Taku Yamasaki; Makoto Koga, a former LDP secretary general; and NCP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai.
The shrine honors Class-A war criminals as well as the nation's war dead.
Repeated visits to Yasukuni by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi have provoked anger in Asian countries that suffered at the hands of Japanese military aggression before and during World War II.
China, for example, remains unwilling to hold a top-level bilateral summit due to this issue.
Referring to a government plan to study the creation of a new national war memorial, Tsutomu Kawara, head of the Diet group supporting the shrine, told reporters he wants Yasukuni to stay the way it is.