South Korea to shun Sado mine memorial in Japan

South Korea will not be attending a November memorial ceremony in Japan to honor people subjected to wartime forced labor in the Sado Island Gold Mines, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, citing differences with Tokyo.

Japan agreed to host a memorial event each year to commemorate the forced labor victims in exchange for Seoul's consent to having the network of mines on Sado added to UNESCO's World Heritage register.

What have Seoul and Tokyo said?

The South Korean Foreign Ministry said South Korea had decided "not to attend the Sado mine memorial ceremony, scheduled for Nov. 24, taking into account various circumstances surrounding the event.

"There was insufficient time to reconcile differing positions between the diplomatic authorities of both countries, making it unlikely to reach a mutually acceptable agreement before the ceremony," it added, without giving further details.

Masashi Mizobuchi, assistant press secretary at Japan's Foreign Ministry, called the South Korean decision "disappointing."

He said Japan had been in intense communication with the South Korean side but gave no details of what was discussed.

Potential bones of contention

The mines were notorious for using forced labor, including that of South Korean workers, of whom some 780,000 were conscripted during Japan's colonial rule of the entire Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945, according to Seoul's data.

Historians maintain that the Korean workers were subjected to much harsher treatment than their Japanese fellow laborers. 

However, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has been accused at home of failing to gain adequate assurances from Japan that it will highlight the suffering of the Korean laborers during the event.

Seoul retracted its objections to the UNESCO listing "on the condition that Japan faithfully implements the recommendation ... to reflect the 'full history' at the Sado Gold Mine site."

There was also criticism in South Korea after Tokyo earlier this week said that Akiko Ikuina, a parliamentary vice minister at Japan's Foreign Ministry, would be the government's representative at the ceremony, according to Seoul's Yonhap news agency.

Ikuina is unacceptable to some South Koreans as she has visited the Yasukuni Shrine — a controversial site in South Korea because it commemorates some 1,000 Japanese war criminals, among others who died serving Japan.

The mines are now a UNESCO World Heritage SiteImage: Yonhap/picture alliance

Attempts at rapprochement

Since taking office in 2022, Yoon has focused on improving ties with Japan in the face of the North Korean nuclear threat after years of tensions related partly to historical issues.

 The controversy surrounding the Sado event is thus a rare occurrence in recent times.

The two countries have long had disagreements over issues related to the Japanese occupation, which brought with it instances of sexual slavery, among other things.

The two East Asian neighbors are also at variance over the question of ownership of some small islands off the eastern coast of South Korea,  known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.

Sado Island is situated off the city of Niigata, northwest of Tokyo.

tj/sms (AP,AFP)