A top aide to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lashed out Friday at U.S. President Barack Obama's administration for expressing disappointment over the Japanese leader's contentious visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine, saying past Republican-led U.S. administrations would not have responded in such a fashion.
"The past administrations led by Republicans weren't nitpickers who would play it up like that," Koichi Hagiuda, who serves as special adviser to Abe as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, told a party gathering closed to the media, according to participants.
"It is just because the current administration is led by Democrats, and by President Obama," House of Representatives lawmaker Hagiuda was quoted as saying at the meeting.