TOKYO -- The granddaughter of wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was executed for crimes against humanity, said Tuesday she will run for a parliamentary seat in July to ''restore the honor'' of those who gave their lives for Japan.

Yuko Tojo, 67, told The Associated Press she will run as an independent from the Tokyo constituency for the legislature's upper house...

In a separate statement, Tojo called for a national debate on punitive postwar treaties imposed on Japan ''to show appreciation and respect toward for those who gave their lives for Japan, and to restore their honor.''

Gen. Tojo, prime minister from 1941 to 1944, unleashed a savage war of aggression on Japan's neighbors and has been widely remembered both at home and abroad as Asia's answer to Adolf Hitler.

Tojo, who is enshrined with Japan's 2.5 million war dead at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, also ordered the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that plunged the United States into World War II.