Senior lawmakers from the ruling coalition and the Democratic Party of Japan on Friday launched a nonpartisan panel to study the feasibility of establishing a new war memorial to bridge the rift between Japan and its neighbors over Yasukuni Shrine.
The panel's establishment comes in the wake of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit last week to the Tokyo shrine, which provoked strong criticism from Japan's neighbors, including China and South Korea.
Yasukuni is considered a symbol of Japan's wartime aggression. The shrine honors 14 Class-A war criminals along with 2.46 million war dead.