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Japan PM Moves to Apologise Amid Political Storm
Bowing to pressure to calm a political storm in the run-up to elections, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori moved to apologise for remarks that echoed the wartime past, domestic media said on Wednesday.
Mori, who has a history of political gaffes, whipped up cross-party anger on Monday when he said Japan was a divine society with the emperor at its core -- remarks that blurred Japan's postwar constitutional separation of state and religion.
"I will offer an apology over my remarks," the Kyodo news agency quoted Mori as saying late on Tuesday.
He was expected to offer that apology later in the day, possibly to parliament, for the remarks that drew anger from opposition politicians, concern from within his own cabinet and confusion from a Buddhist partner in his three-party ruling coalition.
However, analysts said the issue was unlikely to cloud the victory prospects for Mori's dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a general election expected on June 25 -- although Mori's own future could be in doubt.
"Japan is a divine country with the emperor at its centre, and we want the people of Japan to recognise this," Mori had told a group of lawmakers with ties to the ancient Shinto religion + a moving force behind Japan's World War Two militarism.
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