The Korea Herald

지나쌤

Nat'l Assembly adopts resolution urging Japan to withdraw UNESCO bid for Sado mine

By Yonhap

Published : Feb. 27, 2023 - 21:13

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Photo shows the former gold mine on Sado Island off Niigata, northwest of Tokyo, taken on Jan. 3, 2022, (Yonhap) Photo shows the former gold mine on Sado Island off Niigata, northwest of Tokyo, taken on Jan. 3, 2022, (Yonhap)

South Korea's National Assembly adopted a resolution Monday urging Japan to withdraw its bid to register a former gold mine linked to wartime forced labor as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Last month, the Japanese government submitted a recommendation letter again to the U.N. body for the listing of the mine on Sado Island, after the initial version, delivered in February last year, was deemed incomplete.

Many Koreans were forced into hard labor in the mine during World War II, while Korea was under Japan's brutal colonization.

The resolution expressed "deep regret" over the Japanese move and urged Tokyo to fulfill its promise to acknowledge and provide information about the Korean victims of forced labor when registering its modern industrial facilities as a World Heritage Site.

UNESCO recommended such measures when it registered Japan's Hashima Island, also known as Battleship Island, along with other Meiji-era sites as a World Heritage Site in 2015. (Yonhap)