TOKYO, May 9 (UPI) -- A Japanese lawmaker has said the late Emperor Hirohito, known as Emperor Showa, should have stepped down when Japan lost World War II to take responsibility.
"He didn't have any political responsibility (for waging the war), but he did have symbolic responsibility," Naoto Kan, former leader of the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan, said in a recent TV debate, the Mainichi Shimbun reported Monday.
Kan also claimed that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where several war criminals are among those entombed, incurred the fury of China and South Korea.
He cited a 1995 statement by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, in which he expressed regret and apologized for Japan's atrocities in Asian countries before and during World War II.
"I think the Murayama statement settled the history issue. But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine raised the controversy again," Kan said. "The prime minister's political responsibility for the trouble is grave."
