TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has decided not to visit the war-linked Yasukuni shrine, a site that has long been a source of diplomatic friction with Japan's neighbors, during its spring festival next week, sources familiar with the plan said Thursday.

Ishiba will instead offer a "masakaki" ritual offering to the shrine, the sources said, as he did during its autumn festival when he and his entire Cabinet refrained from visiting.

Yasukuni honors the souls of Japan's more than 2.4 million war dead, but the country's wartime leaders, convicted as war criminals by a post-World War II international tribunal, are also enshrined there.

The decision apparently reflects Ishiba's desire to avoid worsening ties with China and South Korea, which view the shrine as a symbol of Japan's past militarism. Japan invaded large parts of China before the end of World War II and colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

The spring festival, which runs from Monday to Wednesday, comes at a time when Japan's ties with China and South Korea -- long strained over wartime history and territorial issues -- have been improving.

Ishiba's two predecessors also refrained from visiting the shrine during its festivals.

When then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited in December 2013, it drew sharp rebukes from China and South Korea and prompted the United States, Japan's key postwar ally, to express disappointment.

With this year marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Ishiba has emphasized the importance of reflecting on what led Japan to war and drawing lessons from it.

He is not expected to issue a new Cabinet-approved war anniversary statement, breaking with the tradition set by his predecessors on the 50th, 60th and 70th anniversaries.