Japan PM sends offering to war shrine

TOKYO  — Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sent a religious offering to a Tokyo shrine that honors the dead including executed war criminals, a center of tension with Japan's neighbors.

Abe's offering Monday at the Yasukuni Shrine marks the April 21-23 spring festival, one of the shrine's key annual events. But the move suggests he will not visit Yasukuni ahead of President Barack Obama's visit beginning Wednesday.

Two ministers of his Cabinet have visited Yasukuni over the past two weeks.

The shrine has long been a flashpoint between Japan and neighbors China and both Koreas. They see Yasukuni as a symbol of Japan's past militarism, and repeated visits by Japanese leaders as a lack of remorse over wartime history.

Yasukui enshrines 2.6 million war dead including, 14 Class A war criminals from World War II.