• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

KCNA Assails Japanese Heavyweights' Visits to "Yasukuni Shrine"

KCNA

    Pyongyang, August 18 (KCNA) -- Several Japanese heavyweights reportedly visited the "Yasukuni Shrine" on August 15. When interviewed by media persons at the end of the visit Tanikaki, chairman of the national public safety commission, said that he prayed for the souls of the dead in the past history and visited the shrine, thinking that the foundation of Japan today was laid at their sacrifices.
    This indicates that the Japanese reactionaries still seek to realise their wild ambition for the reinvasion of Asia at any cost by calling back the departed souls of militarists, oblivious of a lesson taught by history.
    The visit to the shrine, where arch war criminals, who launched wars of aggression in the past, are entombed, can not but be a criminal move to revive militarism. Japanese politicians' visit to the shrine on the day of Japan's defeat compels us doubt whether they have a political intention to redeem Japan's aggression of Asia and all other crimes it committed against Korean and other Asian people in the past century or not.
    What should not be overlooked is that the visit to the shrine by the present chief executive and other government officials of Japan has become undisguised even after the publication of the DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration.
    Prime minister Koizumi visited the shrine on January 14 only to invite strong criticism from the international community. On April 22 182 Japanese politicians including 74 dietmen visited the shrine, sparking again a furor among the international community.
    The endless visit to the shrine by the Japanese reactionaries can not but be a perfidy to the declaration, whereby the DPRK and Japan committed themselves to liquidate the unhappy past and establish new good neighborly and friendly relations, and a serious provocative act of putting the fate of the declaration and its prospect at peril.
    The Korean people will never tolerate the Japanese reactionaries' criminal act of escalating their moves for militarization and overseas expansion while evading the issue of redeeming Japan's past and laying an ideological and moral foundation for militarization in wanton violation of the spirit of the Pyongyang declaration.