Japan PM Takaichi sends offering to Yasukuni Shrine

Japan PM Takaichi sends offering to Yasukuni Shrine

Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae has sent a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo at the start of its autumn festival.

The shrine honors Japan's war dead. Those remembered include leaders convicted of war crimes after World War Two.

Takaichi sent a potted plant called "masakaki" in her capacity as prime minister for the shrine's festival that began on Saturday.

She used to visit the shrine during its spring and autumn festivals as well as on August 15, the day Japan marks the end of the war.

But she has not done so since she became the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party last October.

On August 15 this year, she offered a prayer in the direction of the shrine from the compound of the Nippon Budokan arena that is several hundred meters away. She was attending a government-sponsored memorial ceremony for the war dead.

She made a private cash offering to the shrine on the occasion of the festivals last autumn and this spring as well as the war anniversary.