South Korea Wednesday criticized a group of Japanese lawmakers who paid tribute to a controversial shrine symbolizing Japan's militaristic past.

A bipartisan group of Japanese politicians visited the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo earlier in the day on the occasion of an annual spring festival, a day after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent an offering there.

The shrine honors 14 convicted war criminals among many other war veterans enshrined there.

"It is deeply disappointing and beyond deplorable," Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement. "The politicians' offerings and tribute demonstrate that Japan still does not squarely face history."

The ministry urged Japan to show through action that it sincerely repents and apologizes for its wartime atrocities and meet public expectations for an improvement in bilateral ties.

South Korean officials will also closely watch Abe's speech at the Asian-African Conference in Jakarta later Wednesday.

The conservative leader has sought to disavow Tokyo's previous apologies for its wartime past in statements by his predecessors.

Abe is also scheduled to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress next week.

Since Abe's return to power in 2012, Japan's relations with South Korea and China have worsened over their shared history.

President Park Geun-hye has rejected Abe's request for bilateral summit talks in protest of Japan's attempt to gloss over its wartime atrocities and territorial claim to South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo in the East Sea. Japan colonized Korea from 1910-45. (Yonhap)