Photo/Illutration Seiichi Eto, a state minister in charge of Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs, visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Oct. 17, the first day of the shrine’s autumn festival. (Maho Yoshikawa)

The state minister in charge of Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs visited the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Oct. 17, the first Cabinet member to do so in more than two years.

Seiichi Eto’s visit came on the first day of the shrine’s autumn festival, which ends on Oct. 20.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is not expected to visit the Shinto shrine in Chiyoda Ward during the festival period.

A visit by any Cabinet member has triggered harsh reactions from Asian neighbors, particularly South Korea and China, as the shrine honors Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, as well as 14 Class-A war criminals from World War II.

The last Cabinet member who visited Yasukuni was Sanae Takaichi in April 2017, as the minister of internal affairs and communications.

On Oct. 17, Eto offered prayers at the shrine’s main hall and left without taking any questions from a crowd of reporters.

But he emphasized the importance of paying respect to the war dead at the shrine to The Asahi Shimbun.

“I offered prayers for those who gave their lives to their country, and I prayed for peace and the happiness of people,” Eto said. “Each country has a venue for memorializing people who sacrificed their lives for their country and a memorial service has been held.”

Eto also said he covered the cost for “tamagushiryo,” a cash offering usually made during one’s visit to a shrine, out of his pocket as a private citizen. He added that he signed the shrine’s register book as “State minister, Upper House member, Seiichi Eto.”

Abe offered “masakaki,” a sacred evergreen ritual implement, with a nameplate inscribed “Prime Minister Shinzo Abe” to the shrine on the morning of Oct. 17.

Including his first premiership from 2006 to 2007, Abe visited Yasukuni only once, in December 2013, about a year after his second tenure as prime minister began.

He has not returned to the shrine since out of diplomatic considerations to China and South Korea.

But he has presented the masakaki offering during the shrine’s spring and autumn festivals. Abe has also given the tamagushiryo at his own expense every Aug. 15, the day Japan marks as the end of World War II.

Although Katsunobu Kato, welfare minister, did not visit the shrine on Oct. 17, he also sent a masakaki offering with a nameplate bearing his official title and name.

Dozens of lawmakers from both chambers of the Diet belonging to a supra-party group formed to visit Yasukuni together are expected to visit the shrine on Oct. 18.