North Korea condemned Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's offering of ritual offerings to the Yasukuni Shrine and the collective visits by Japanese politicians, calling it a "new militarist gale."
Korean Central News Agency on the 24th sharply criticized that recent visit to the Yasukuni Shrine by Japan's conservative politicians is showing a different pattern than before.
The commentary noted that the Japanese government is pushing to revise the three principles on the transfer of defense equipment and to reexamine the three non-nuclear principles, claiming that the Takaichi administration is "displaying an extremely dangerous military move unseen in previous administrations."
It went on to claim that although Prime Minister Takaichi did not personally visit the Yasukuni Shrine, she conducted a so-called "surprise remote bow" (bowing in the direction where the object is located from afar), accusing Japanese society at large of heightening a mood for reinvasion.
It also took issue with the visit to the Yasukuni Shrine by Japanese politicians, including Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi. The agency said, "The new militarist gale that Japan has whipped up more fiercely than ever on the occasion of its defeat day will bring a storm of ruin to the island nation."
Earlier, on the 15th, which is Korea's Liberation Day and Japan's defeat day, Prime Minister Takaichi bowed in the direction of the Yasukuni Shrine—where Class-A war criminals from the Pacific War are enshrined—from a parking lot at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo and offered payment for ritual offerings. Four incumbent ministers, including Defense Minister Koizumi, visited the shrine in person.
Since then, North Korea's state media have been issuing daily commentaries and articles targeting Japan, criticizing it as a "reckless act that stokes the revival of militarism."