Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Cabinet resigned en masse on Tuesday morning ahead of the new administration of newly-elected ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) President Shinzo Abe.

Koizumi announced the overall resignation after accepting resignation of his Cabinet ministers.

Koizumi stepped onto the post of premier in 2001, and has now become Japan's longest-serving leader in three decades.

In his tenure of more than 5 years, while unilaterally concentrated on the promotion of alliance with the United States, Koizumi insisted on paying visits to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, engendering a deterioration of relations with China and South Korea and dragging Japan into an embarrassed diplomatic isolation in Asia.

Abe, who sealed a landslide victory in the LDP presidential race on Sept. 20, will be elected premier in an extra Diet session on Tuesday afternoon because the ruling bloc, made up of the LDP and its coalition partner New Komeito party, holds a majority in the House of Representatives, which controls the final say in selecting a premier.

Abe will announce the lineup of the new Cabinet later in the day.

Sources indicated that current Senior Vice Foreign Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki is likely to be nominated as chief Cabinet secretary, the post of top government spokesman, which will be concurrently given the assignment to handle the issue of abductions of Japanese nationals by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Source: Xinhua