South Korea will not attend Sado mines memorial event in Japan amid lingering historical tensions

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government said Saturday it will not attend a memorial service near Japan’s Sado Island Gold Mines due to unspecified disagreements with Tokyo over the event, which stirred longstanding tensions over the abuse of Korean forced laborers at the site before the end of World War II.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was impossible to settle the disagreements between both governments before the planned event on Sunday.

The ministry didn’t specify what the disagreements were.

Some South Koreans had criticized the Seoul government throwing its support behind an event without securing a clear Japanese commitment to highlight the plight of Korean laborers.

The South Korean sentiment over the event worsened after the Japanese government said this week it would send Akiko Ikuina, a parliamentary vice minister at the country’s Foreign Ministry, to the event. Ikuina had reportedly visited Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine following her election as a lawmaker in 2022, which honors the country’s about 2.5 million war dead, including convicted war criminals. Japan’s neighbors view the shrine as a symbol of the country’s past militarism.

There were also complaints over South Korea agreeing to pay for the travel expenses of Korean victims’ family members who were invited to attend the ceremony.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has prioritized improving relations with Japan following years of disputes over their bitter history and solidifying three-way security cooperation with Washington in the face of North Korean nuclear threats.