South Korea is now going to accept designation of forced labor-linked gold mines on Japan’s Sado Island as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, a senior official of the country’s Foreign Ministry said Friday.
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee is likely to decide to inscribe the Sado Island Gold Mines on the heritage list during its ongoing meeting in New Delhi without a vote, the official told local news media.
Alleging that many people from the Korean Peninsula were forced to work at the mining complex, also including silver mines, on the Niigata Prefecture island during World War II, when the peninsula was under Japan’s coronial rule, South Korea initially responded harshly to Japan’s move to seek the historic industrial site’s heritage registration.
To obtain Seoul’s consent, Tokyo launched bilateral negotiations.
Meanwhile, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which advises the UNESCO committee, made three recommendations to Japan last month including the removal from the proposed site a district with many remains of relatively new mines built in the post-Edo period from 1868.
ICOMOS also called on Japan to give visitors to the site explanations and displays about all periods in which mining took place.
The South Korean official said difficult parts of the negotiations are almost over and that Japan has promised to take concrete measures to showcase the entire history of the Sado mines.