A senior ruling party official said on Sunday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit a shrine for Japan's war dead that also contains souls of convicted war criminals, but avoid the anniversary of Japan's World War Two surrender.
The popular Koizumi has been under heavy pressure from China and South Korea, both victims of Japan's wartime aggression, to call off his planned visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Secretary General Taku Yamasaki told a Fuji Television talk show that he believed the visit to Yasukuni would certainly be made and added that he thought it should be done.
Koizumi's plans to visit the Shinto shrine, dedicated to Japan's 2.5 million war dead since the 19th century, on the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two on August 15 have met with angry criticism from neighbouring Asian countries.
China and the two Koreas, occupied by troops of Japan's Imperial army in the first half of the 20th century, have strongly protested.
The shrine also contains the spirits of wartime military leaders convicted as war criminals for their roles in Japan's invasion of Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.