South Korea's Foreign Ministry strongly criticized Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Japanese lawmakers for sending offerings and visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine. 

The controversial site honors Class A war criminals alongside other Japanese war dead.

About 70 lawmakers from both ruling and opposition parties paid a visit to the shrine Thursday while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, presently visiting Europe, sent ritual offerings a day earlier as it opened an annual fall festival.

For Koreans, Yasukuni is a painful symbol of wartime atrocities when Japan controlled the Korean Peninsula.

The Foreign Ministry in Seoul urged Japan to sincerely reflect upon and understand history correctly, and to work toward future-oriented relations with its neighbors.