Visitors stand near Doyu no Warito, symbolic remain of the Sado Gold Mine, in Sado, Niigata prefecture, Japan, Nov 24, 2024. (PHOTO / AP)
SEOUL – South Korea protested at Japan’s no mention of Koreans’ forced labor during a Saturday ceremony to commemorate the victims in Japan’s war-linked gold mine, multiple media outlets said Sunday.
An unnamed presidential official was quoted as saying that South Korea was in a position that the memorial service should be carried out in full with its content and form consistent with its “purpose and nature,” adding that Seoul would continue talks with Tokyo under the position.
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The official noted that although South Korea failed to reach a satisfactory conclusion this year, the country believed that building mutual trust and understanding, and creating right conditions, based on its position of facing the past while moving toward the future, will help further enhance the quality of cooperation, including on historical issues.
The first annual ceremony was held last year in exchange for Seoul’s agreement to list the “Sado Island Gold Mines,” a gold mine on the Sado Island associated with the Korean Peninsula’s wartime forced labor, as a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2024.
Like last year, South Korea boycotted the memorial service this year as no agreement was reached with Japan about Seoul’s demand to include in the memorial address an acknowledgement that Koreans were forced into labor.
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South Korean historians say thousands of Koreans were forced by Imperial Japan into heavy labor for the gold mine, which was turned into facilities to manufacture war-related materials during World War II when the Korean Peninsula was under Japan’s colonial rule. The mine was shut down in 1989.
South Korea planned to hold its own ceremony with the victims’ families, but the exact date had yet to be decided.
AloJapan.com