Japan PM's new picks deny neo-Nazi links

Yahoo – AFP, 8 Sep 2014

Newly-appointed Japanese Internal Affairs and Communication Minister Sanae Takaichi

 at a press conference at the prime minister's residence in Tokyo on September 3, 2014

(AFP Photo/Toshifumi Kitamura)

Tokyo (AFP) - Two newly-promoted Japanese politicians moved Monday to distance themselves from allegations of extremism after pictures emerged of them posing alongside the leader of a domestic neo-Nazi party.

Minister Sanae Takaichi and party policy chief Tomomi Inada are seen in separate photographs next to Kazunari Yamada on the home page of the National Socialist Japanese Workers Party.

The pictures will add fuel to claims that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is increasingly surrounding himself with people on the right of Japanese politics.

Party policy chief Tomomi Inada speaks to

 reporters after she visited the controversial 

Yasukuni Shrine to honour the war dead on

April 28, 2014 in Tokyo (AFP Photo/Jiji Press)

Yamada's blog postings indicate admiration for Adolf Hitler and praise for the 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre.

In video footage posted on the website, Yamada is seen wearing a stylised swastika during street demonstrations.

Captions for the photographs claim they were taken "sometime in June or July 2011 when (Yamada) visited the conservative lawmakers for talks".

Spokesmen for both senior lawmakers acknowledged Monday that the photographs were genuine and had been taken in their offices over the last few years, but denied there was any political affiliation.

"He was an assistant for an interviewer, and was taking notes and photos," a member of staff at Takaichi's office told AFP, referring to Yamada.

"We had no idea who he was back then, but he requested a snap shot with her. (The minister) wouldn't refuse such requests."

Following media enquiries, the office has asked that the pictures be removed, he said.

"It was careless of us," he said, adding that Takaichi did not share Yamada's view "at all... it is a nuisance".

A staffer at Inada's office said the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) policy chief did not subscribe to Nazi ideology.

"It is disappointing if there are people who would misunderstand that she does," he said.

Abe has courted criticism for his strident nationalism and views on history that some find unpalatable.

In particular his unwillingness to condemn Imperial Japan's behaviour up to and during World War II has proved a sticking point in international relations.

His equivocations about the formalised system of sex slavery -- known euphemistically as "comfort women" -- has particularly irked South Korea and China, and both regularly call on him to re-think his views.

Abe's new 18-strong cabinet, announced last week, includes a number of people with hawkish views.

Takaichi and Inada have both visited Yasukuni Shrine, the supposed repository of the souls of Japan's war dead, including a number of convicted war criminals. The shrine is seen in Asia as a symbol of Japan's lack of repentance for the war.

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