The government on Tuesday "strongly" demanded two Japanese cabinet ministers withdraw their plan to visit a controversial war shrine devoted to Tokyo's war dead, a move expected to trigger immediate anger from Seoul and other Asian neighbors.
The two Japanese ministers from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan have said they will visit the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Wednesday, which honors war dead, including Class A criminals convicted by the Allies in the trials that followed World War II.
"Our government has kept a stance that responsible Japanese leaders, including cabinet ministers, should not visit the Yasukuni Shrine," Seoul's foreign ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young said.
"In that context, we strongly called on those responsible Japanese leaders not to commit such an act."
The planned visit by the two Japanese ministers, Yuichiro Hata and Jin Matsubara, to the shrine would be the first since the Japanese ruling party took power in 2009.
Visits to the shrine by Japanese leaders have prompted angry protests from South Korea, China and other Asian nations.
Diplomatic tensions between South Korea and Japan have already been heightened after President Lee Myung-bak made an unprecedented visit to Dokdo, the easternmost South Korean islets that Japan has claimed as its territory, last Friday.
Lee said that he decided to visit the islets because he wanted to show through action that Japan should resolve grievances over its colonial rule.
Japan, which ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910 to 1945, has long laid claims to Dokdo in school textbooks, government reports and other ways, undercutting better ties between the neighboring nations, along with its refusal to resolve the comfort women and other issues stemming from the colonial rule.
Tokyo's strict unwillingness to make amends to resolve those issues with Seoul has been a major obstacle to closer ties. (Yonhap)