TOKYO, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Japan on Tuesday said it would seek a gold and silver mine site on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture to be nominated for the 2023 UNESCO World Heritage list, despite vehement protests from South Korea about the plan due to the site's connections to wartime labor.
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida approved a plan to seek the listing of the Sado gold mine, meaning a letter of recommendation will be submitted to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) by the deadline on Tuesday.
"We will engage in dialogue with South Korea and other nations calmly and politely so the value of the site as a cultural asset will be recognized," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a press briefing on the matter.
"A task force will be set up by Japan to make preparations for the selection process which will include deliberations over the site's historical background," Matsuno said.
South Korea has said it was "deplorable" that Japan was seeking the listing of the mine by UNESCO, where Korean nationals were forcibly subjected to brutal labor during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea has demanded that Japan's plan for the site to be nominated for the 2023 UNESCO World Heritage list to be immediately revoked.
Japan is hoping that a UNESCO advisory body will survey the mine site this autumn and decide around May next year whether or not it warrants adding the site to the list.
Thereafter, the World Heritage Committee will examine the advisory board's opinion in the summer.
But owing to South Korea's unwavering opposition, it could well be the case that UNESCO will ditch the screening process and call for further negotiations on the matter between Japan and South Korea. ■
