Japan and South Korea exchange protests over World Heritage nomination

Japan and South Korea lodged protests with each other Thursday over their views on Tokyo’s recent nomination for the 2023 UNESCO World Heritage list of a gold and silver mine site, which Seoul says is linked to wartime Korean labor.

South Korean Foreign Minister Chung-Eui Yong expressed “deep disappointment and protest” when he held phone talks with his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi over Tokyo’s attempt to register the mine on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, according to the South Korean Foreign Ministry.

Chung said Japan has not faced up to the history of wartime Korean laborers during the country’s 1910-45 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, demanding Japan actively seek a solution acceptable to the Korean victims, the ministry said.

Hayashi, meanwhile, said South Korea’s argument about the mine is unacceptable, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said.

He told Chung that Japan-South Korea relations remain in a tough situation due to moves by South Korea on issues such as compensation to wartime laborers and “comfort women” in Japan’s military brothels during World War II, and that Seoul should make an “appropriate response” to deal with it, the ministry said.

Hayashi also told Chung that Japan will have a sincere dialogue with South Korea so that Seoul will understand the mine as a cultural heritage, the ministry added.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last week announced that Japan would recommend the Sado mine, one of the world’s largest producers of gold in the 17th century, for the World Heritage list.

The decision, a reversal of Tokyo’s initial plan not to make a recommendation this year, immediately triggered an objection from Seoul.

Hayashi and Chung held their first official talks since Hayashi took office in November.

They only had a brief chat at an informal dinner in December when South Korea joined an expanded session of a Group of Seven foreign ministerial meeting in Britain.

During Thursday’s phone talks, which lasted 35 minutes, they also shared concerns about repeated missile launches by North Korea this year and confirmed cooperation also involving the United States to deal with the North, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

Japan had proposed the ministerial talks to discuss the North Korean issue. But Chung brought up the topic of the Sado mine during the conversation, a Japanese official said.