Sadakazu Tanigaki, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, said Wednesday he will visit Yasukuni Shrine on Sunday, the anniversary of the end of World War II.
"I won the (LDP) presidential election saying that I will visit (Yasukuni) on the anniversary of the end of the war," Tanigaki told reporters, referring to last September's race for the main opposition party's top post.
On the recent decision of Prime Minister Naoto Kan and all of his Cabinet members not to visit the shrine out of consideration for Asian victims of Japan's past militarism, Tanigaki said, "Each party has its own view."
It will be the first anniversary of the end of the war on Aug. 15, 1945, since Kan's Democratic Party of Japan came to power last September after defeating the LDP in the general election the previous month. The Tokyo shrine honors Japan's war dead along with war criminals.