Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday his visits to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo "are unrelated to the crimes of Class-A World War II war criminals" honored there.

"The crimes are unrelated to my visits," Koizumi was quoted by the local media as saying.

Koizumi's comments followed remarks by Masahiro Morioka, parliamentary secretary for health, labor and welfare, at a meeting of Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party LDP saying the Class-A war criminals are no longer regarded as criminals in Japan.

Koizumi said the pursuit of Japanese responsibility for World War II "is over with the (Tokyo) war tribunal," brushing aside criticism that his visits are tantamount to honoring the Class-A war criminals.

Koizumi has paid visits every year to the notorious shrine since taking office in April 2001, despite strong protests of other Asian nations.

In the meeting of LDP House of Representatives members in the afternoon, Morioka called the Tokyo war crimes tribunal "a unilateral tribunal." "There are no grounds to say winners are right and losers are wrong. There is no need to apologize," he wasquoted as saying.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda denied that Morioka's remarks represent any official view. "He must have spoken of his personal view as a lower house member, but various inaccuracies are included about the facts."

"There is no way he spoke as a member of the government," the top government spokesman said in a press conference. "His view is far apart from the government's past position."

According to Kyodo News, in a related argument the same day, former LDP policy chief Shizuka Kamei criticized a proposal to remove tablets of the Class-A war criminals from the shrine as one"based on the Chinese perception of history."

China considers shrine visits by Japanese leaders as one of themost difficult issues in current China-Japan political relations, saying the issue reflects what the Japanese government thinks about Japan's history of aggression against other Asian countries,including China.

On Tuesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the extremely wrong remarks the Japanese leader has repeatedly made recently on shrine visits have aroused concern about whether Japanreally wants to seek peaceful development.

"China hopes Japanese leaders could take seriously the feelingsof the Asian countries that fell victims of Japanese militarists, really express their remorse for the historical tragedy and put what they have promised into practice," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan.

China attaches great importance to its relationship with Japan and has made unremitting efforts to improve and push forward the relations, which are fully reflected by Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi's recent visit to Japan, said the spokesman.

"However, during Vice Premier Wu's stay in Japan, Japanese leaders have repeatedly made remarks on visiting the Yasukuni Shrine that hurt China-Japan relations, and China is extremely dissatisfied with it," Kong said, referring to the aborted meeting between Wu and Koizumi.

Source: Xinhua