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South Korea to boycott Sado mine memorial service for third consecutive year

evening · · thread: Japanese Defense Minister to Skip Seoul Defense Dialogue

2 sources across 2 countries · Japan · South Korea · 1 of them is linked to a state

Who reported this

  • The Japan Times Japan · Centre · News2u Holdings
  • Yonhap South Korea · Centre · State-affiliated · Cooperative; statutory national agency with state subsidy

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
  • A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.

Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.

Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.

The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.

Every outlet covering this story shares the same political lean; read with that in mind.

South Korea will not attend Japan's memorial ceremony for victims of wartime forced labor at the Sado mine complex this year. According to the South Korean foreign ministry, this marks the third consecutive year of the country's absence from the event. Japan plans to hold the ceremony on Saturday in Niigata Prefecture, where many Koreans were forced to work during World War II.

Seoul stated that the decision follows a failure to reach an agreement on key issues, specifically how to address the coercive nature of the mobilization of Korean workers. The foreign ministry urged Japan to fully and faithfully implement recommendations from the 48th session of the World Heritage Committee. This committee called on Japan to reflect the whole history of the mine, including the period of Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945 when more than 1,500 Koreans were mobilized.

Japan pledged to hold an annual memorial ceremony as part of the conditions for the Sado mine complex to be inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2024. South Korea has previously boycotted ceremonies in 2024 and 2025, citing a lack of sincerity from Tokyo. South Korean officials indicated that they plan to hold their own separate ceremony later this year.

How each side framed it

Centre
Outlets with a center lean focused on the diplomatic stalemate and the specific historical requirements for the memorial's recognition.

Sources

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