TOKYO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Japanese group Nippon Izokukai, also known as the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association, said Tuesday that it strongly protested against Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine earlier in the day.

    "We strongly protest against the shrine visit" and "we say NO to the visits to the Yasukuni Shrine," the group said in a statement. The group, including about 1,500 family members of the Japanese war dead, has been against Koizumi's shrine visits since his first one in 2001.

    The group is scheduled to hold demonstrations against the shrine visit Tuesday noon.

    Koizumi made his pilgrimage to the Tokyo-based shrine on Tuesday morning. This was his sixth visit to the war-linked shrine as a prime minister.

    The prime minister's visits to the shrine have been denounced by countries which suffered from Japan's brutal aggression before and during World War II.

    Koizumi's previous visits have chilled Japan's relations with neighboring China and South Korea, making the issue the major stumbling block in the smooth development of relations with those countries. Enditem