South Korea expressed concern Thursday over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ritual offering to a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, urging him to make efforts to develop a "future-oriented" bilateral relationship.

Our government cannot help but express concern over the fact that he sent an offering again to the Yasukuni Shrine that glorifies the past colonial invasion and honors war criminals," Seoul's Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck said during a regular press briefing.

"We urge the Japanese government to make active efforts to develop a future-oriented relationship by squarely facing history and showing its genuine repentance for its past through actual action."

The conservative Japanese leader has reportedly sent a symbolic offering to the shrine on the occasion of an annual spring festival. The shrine, seen as a symbol of Japan's militaristic past, honors Japanese war dead, including 14 Class-A criminals from World War II.

Abe's symbolic offering further dampened the mood for bilateral cooperation, which emerged after the two neighbors agreed in December to settle their decades-long dispute over Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women. (Yonhap)