SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The South Korean government has decided not to attend a memorial ceremony for Korean laborers forcibly mobilized at Japan's Sado Island Gold Mines, scheduled for Sept. 12, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
This will be the third consecutive year that South Korea has not attended the ceremony. The ministry said the decision was made because South Korea and Japan had failed to reach agreement on key points of contention.
The ministry said South Korea is closely monitoring the relevant decision adopted by the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and urged Japan to fully and faithfully implement the recommendations set out in the decision.
The committee has urged Japan to present the whole history of the Sado Island Gold Mines, a gold mine on Sado Island associated with the Korean Peninsula's wartime forced labor, at the session held in South Korea's Busan in July.
Local media reports, citing historical records, said that about 1,500 Koreans worked at the Sado mines from 1940 to 1945. ■