Angering his nation’s conservatives, Japan’s left-leaning new prime minister marked the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II on Sunday by shunning a religious shrine linked to Japan’s militaristic past and instead expressing regret for the suffering the war caused across Asia.

While no serving Japanese prime minister has visited Yasukuni Shrine in four years, Prime Minister Naoto Kan distanced himself even further by announcing that no one in his government would visit the memorial, which angers other Asian countries by honoring Japanese war criminals. Japanese newspapers said this was the first time since records began to be kept in 1980 that the entire cabinet has stayed away on the Aug. 15 anniversary of the war’s end and Asia’s liberation from Japanese rule.

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