Tuesday's visit was in observance of a twice-yearly peace ceremony at the shinto shrine, a symbol of Japan's wartime imperialism honoring 2.5 million war dead, including 14 designated as Class A criminals by the Allies after World War II.

The ceremony also takes place in October, while many war veterans choose to visit Yasukuni on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender at the end of World War II.

Such visits are regarded as a provocative display of unabashed and resurgent Japanese militarism eslewhere in Asia.

Hiranuma, the trade minister in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration, was in the group formed by both ruling and opposition parties led by Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Among other prominent visitors were former prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who has close ties to an association for war-bereaved families, and LDP secretary-general Taku Yamasaki.

In January Koizumi paid his third visit to the shrine since taking office in April 2001, prompting strong condemnation by China, South Korea and other Asian countries still haunted by dark memories of Japan's aggression during the war.

Despite the criticism, the premier vowed to continue his annual visits. He is only the third prime minister to pray at Yasukuni since 1978, when it enshrined 14 Class-A war criminals, including wartime prime minister General Hideki Tojo.

"Yasukuni is a shrine people have yearned for," Tsutomu Kawara, head of the group aimed at promoting worship at the shrine, told reporters following the lawmakers' visit, according to Jiji Press.

The government has said it would study creating a new, non-religious national war memorial where people could pay their respects to those who fell in combat without appearing to venerate the war criminals most closely associated with Japan's brutal military legacy.

But Yasukuni's chief priest, Tadashi Yuzawa said the shrine would fight any attempt to change its status as the focus of the nation's war remembrance rituals.

The idea of a non-religious memorial "does not take into consideration the feelings of the families of the bereaved. It means to eliminate Yasukuni shrine. We will continue to oppose to policy of a non-religious facility for war dead.

Kawara's group is also opposed to any change.

"We want the shrine to continue existing as it is and hope that our feelings of respect (for what it stands for) will be handed down," Jiji quoted him as saying.

SPACE.WIRE