Japan PM Abe visits Yasukuni war shrine

File photo / China News Service

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went to Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni war shrine on Thursday morning, in a move certain to roil troubled relations with Japan's Asian neighbors.

The visit came exactly one year after he took power and is expected to further inflame already-tense relations with China and South Korea.

Abe, in a formal black swallow-tailed coat and a silver tie, greeted kimono-clad officials at the shrine and entered the building just after 11:30 am (0230 GMT).

The shrine is the believed repository of around 2.5 million souls of Japan's war dead, most of them common soldiers, but also including several high-level officials executed for war crimes after World War II, who were enshrined in the 1970s.