Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's contentious visits to Yasukuni Shrine are a matter of religious freedom, the government said Tuesday, rejecting criticism leveled by a powerful U.S. congressman.
The remarks followed media reports from Washington that Henry Hyde, chairman of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee, is seeking a guarantee from Koizumi that he will not visit Yasukuni Shrine if he is invited to deliver a speech to Congress during a trip to Washington planned for late June.
In a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert on April 26, Hyde, an Illinois Republican, wrote that Koizumi could embarrass Congress and offend American veterans of World War II by making another visit to the war shrine on Aug. 15, the anniversary of the end of the war, after addressing the Congress in the building President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his dramatic 1941 speech just after Japan launched the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.