Japan PM Abe to visit Yasukuni Shrine for war dead

Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Tokyo`s Yasukuni Shrine for war dead on Thursday, a spokesman for the prime minister`s office said, in a move likely to anger Asian neighbour China and South Korea.

Tokyo`s relations with Beijing and Seoul are already strained by territorial rows and disputes stemming from Japan`s wartime occupation of large parts of China and its 1910-1945 colonisation of the Korean peninsula.

The conservative Abe, who took office for a second time a year ago, had said he regretted not visiting the shrine - where Japanese wartime leaders are honoured along with war dead and which is seen in parts of Asia as a symbol of Japanese militarism - during his first 2006-2007 term.