Yasukuni Shrine will not separate Class-A war criminals from the ranks of Japan's war dead honored there, because the outcome of the Tokyo war crimes tribunal that convicted them remains controversial, officials from the Shinto shrine have said in a written statement.
"This is a matter of Japanese religious faith. . . . Their separate enshrinement will never happen," they said in response to questions from Kyodo News.
Yasukuni's flat rejection of a proposal to separate 14 Class-A war criminals — including wartime Prime Minister Gen. Hideki Tojo — from Japan's 2.5 million war dead comes as Japan's ties with China and South Korea remain tense due to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to the Tokyo shrine.