A leading Japanese media executive says Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will not pay tribute at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine during his term.

The Yomiuri newspaper's chairman and editor-in-chief Tsuneo Watanabe on Thursday told the Financial Times that he had asked the prime minister not to visit the controversial shrine.

Watanabe said that instead he advised Abe to go to the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery, which memorializes some 350-thousand war dead but none of them Class-A war criminals.

The media executive also said that Abe has already departed from the philosophy of his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi and is becoming more moderate as he settles into office.

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