Korea to boycott Japan’s Sado mine memorial for second year

Mannequins depicting workers are displayed at the Sado mine site on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, July 28, 2024. Yonhap

For the second year in a row, Korea will boycott a memorial ceremony in Japan honoring forced labor victims, including Koreans, after talks with Tokyo broke down over the wording of the memorial speech.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Thursday, the decision was made after the two sides could not agree on expressions that acknowledge the coercive nature of the labor at the Sado gold mines.

The ceremony is expected to be held Sept. 13 near the mine site in Niigata Prefecture.

"We held serious discussions with the Japanese side over the matter, but ultimately failed to narrow differences on critical issues and decided it was difficult to participate," a ministry official told reporters during a briefing.

The official declined to specify the sticking points, saying only that the two sides engaged in "sincere discussions."

Another factor in the decision, the official said, was the limited time before the ceremony, which would have made it difficult to arrange logistics for the families of forced labor victims to attend.

Seoul notified Tokyo of its decision earlier in the day.

The official said the ministry will hold its own separate memorial near the Sado mine with families of victims in attendance, but did not provide a specific timeline.

The move comes as the Lee Jae Myung administration seeks to maintain stable relations with Japan while downplaying historical grievances.

During a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo on Aug. 23, Lee said the two nations should cooperate where possible, signaling a distinction between historical disputes and practical cooperation.

This year's boycott of the Sado mine memorial marks the second consecutive absence of Korean officials from the ceremony. Seoul also skipped the inaugural event last November, citing similar disagreements with Tokyo.

The annual memorial event was part of a bilateral agreement reached in July 2023, when the site — a former gold mining facility that used forced labor during World War II — was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Korea's consent was seen as critical to the designation. In return, Japan pledged to acknowledge the site's wartime history by holding a yearly ceremony to honor those forced to work there, including Korean victims.

However, the inaugural ceremony turned into a diplomatic flashpoint. Korean officials withdrew at the last minute, expressing dissatisfaction with Japan's choice of representative and the wording of the memorial speech, which avoided direct mention of the coercive nature of Korean labor at the site.