Nearly 70 percent of respondents to a weekend opinion poll say Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should heed the diplomatic implications of his visit to war-linked Yasukuni Shrine and expressed concerns about the provocative move, the results showed Sunday.

The nationwide telephone survey conducted Saturday and Sunday followed Abe's Thursday visit to the Shinto shrine, which was the spiritual backbone of the war and honors Japan's war dead, including Class-A war criminals. Predictably, the visit angered China and South Korea, which were liberated from Imperial Japanese militarism at great cost.

Phone calls were made to 1,429 households with eligible voters and drew 1,013 valid responses.