North Korea has criticized Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine, calling it "a disgrace that summons the ghost of militarism."
A spokesperson for North Korea's Association of Victims and Bereaved Families of Korean Forced Labor issued a statement on the 20th through the Korean Central News Agency, the North's state-run external media outlet, titled "Visits by Japanese Politicians to Yasukuni Shrine, Which Summon the Ghost of Militarism, Can Never Be Tolerated."
"Japan's right-wing conservative politicians have once again staged their game of making ritual offerings and paying respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, using the autumn festival as an occasion," the spokesperson said. "This is at once a total denial of a blood-stained history of aggression and a manifestation of a perilous militarist frenzy aimed at inciting revanchism in Japanese society and realizing, by any means, the vain dream of a 'Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.'"
The spokesperson also voiced strong wariness about changes in Japan's defense policy. "What cannot be overlooked is that the Japanese reactionaries, who are blatantly discarding the signboards they have long held up as symbols of a so-called 'peaceful state' — such as 'exclusively defensive defense,' the 'three principles on arms exports' and the 'three non-nuclear principles' — and rushing headlong toward the revival of a war state, are now even talking about 'creating an environment in which the prime minister can visit the Yasukuni Shrine,' seeking to whip up an ever fiercer gale of neo-militarism."
"Japanese politicians must bear in mind that all they will gain from their collective game of shrine visits is the fate of a second Tojo," the spokesperson said, referring to wartime leader Hideki Tojo, and urged Japan to "come before an international community that desires justice and peace with a correct attitude toward history and with sincere apologies and reparations for its grave crimes."
Takaichi made a ritual offering to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where Class-A war criminals of the Pacific War are enshrined, on the 17th and sent money for an offering on the 19th. Japanese cabinet ministers and lawmakers also visited the shrine in succession, drawing protests from neighboring countries.