Korea will not attend Japan's memorial ceremony for victims of wartime forced labor at the Sado mine complex in Niigata Prefecture on Saturday for the third consecutive year, the foreign ministry said Wednesday. Seoul and Tokyo again failed to agree on how to address the coercive mobilization of Korean workers in the ceremony. Korea said it will hold its own ceremony later this year. The ministry also urged Japan to fully implement recommendations from the World Heritage Committee.
Participants attend a memorial ceremony commemorating the victims of forced labor at a gold mine complex in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, Sept. 13, 2025. Yonhap
Korea will not attend Japan's memorial ceremony for victims of wartime forced labor at the Sado mine complex for the third consecutive year, the foreign ministry said Wednesday.
Japan plans to hold a memorial ceremony for the victims in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, on Saturday, where many Koreans were forced to toil during World War II.
Seoul's boycott comes after the two countries again failed to reach an agreement on key issues surrounding the commemoration, such as how to address the coercive nature of the mobilization of Korean workers in the memorial ceremony.
