The government Friday declared null and void a 1949 state-imposed ban on public schools organizing field trips to Tokyo's war-related Yasukuni Shrine.
The government clarified the point in reply to a query by Takeo Hiranuma, a nationalist ex-trade minister from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who is now an independent Lower House lawmaker.
Hiranuma, along with several LDP hawks, was involved in obscuring the international outcry over the wartime sex slave issue and blocking discussion on having a female head the Imperial family.