UpdateShinzo Abe sends condolences for martyrs, including war criminals

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a condolence message to a ceremony honouring "martyrs", including some convicted as war criminals after the second world war, his top spokesman said yesterday, news that could snarl efforts to thaw chilly ties with China.

Abe sent the message in April to a Buddhist temple in western Japan housing a monument to more than 1,000 "Showa Martyrs", including wartime leaders who were convicted by Allied tribunals and were executed or died in prison, an official of a group sponsoring the event said.

The term Showa refers to the late emperor Hirohito, in whose name Japanese soldiers fought during the war.

"I offer my sincere condolences to the spirits of those Showa martyrs who gave their lives for the sake of today's peace and prosperity, becoming the foundation of the fatherland," the official quoted Abe as saying in the message. "I pray for eternal peace and pledge to carve out a path to a future of human coexistence," he added.

The same wartime leaders are enshrined along with war dead at the more widely known Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Visits there by Japanese leaders typically outrage China, where memories of Japan's past militarism run deep.

Abe sent the message as the head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.

"As such, the government thinks of him in this respect as a private citizen," Suga added.