By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) -After boycotting a memorial event organised by Tokyo, South Korea held its own on Monday to remember compatriots forced to work in a Japanese mine during World War Two, highlighting lingering sensitivities between the key U.S. allies.
The memorial has touched a raw nerve although Seoul and Tokyo have seen ties generally improve in recent years, as they seek to put aside acrimonious disputes tied to Japan’s 1910-45 colonisation of the Korean peninsula.
Seoul’s decision not to attend Sunday’s event at the Sado mine followed a Kyodo report that Japan would send an official who the news agency said had visited a shrine that neighbouring countries see as a symbol of Japan’s militarist past.
Kyodo late on Monday issued an apology for what it said turned out to be an erroneous report that the official, Akiko Ikuina, now the parliamentary vice minister for foreign affairs, had visited the shrine in 2022 as a lawmaker.
“There is a possibility that (the report) had an impact on diplomacy,” Kyodo said, noting that the South Korean foreign ministry had commented on Ikuina’s reported visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said in a weekend television interview that the governments could not resolve their differences in time, but added the incident should not damage improved ties under President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Yoon has pushed to boost three-way security efforts with Tokyo and Washington.
South Korea’s ambassador to Japan led the memorial event, with the participation of nine descendants of the original labourers as well as some government officials. The parallel events held by the two countries both took place in Sado.
In his remarks, Ambassador Park Cheol-hee expressed deep sorrow at the plight of South Korea’s forced labourers, exhorting Japan to ensure the painful history of the mine was not forgotten.
“Our government’s decision not to attend the memorial service by the Japanese side and hold its own memorial event is an expression of our government’s firm determination not to compromise with the Japanese side on the past history,” South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Japan’s top government spokesperson, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said it was not Tokyo’s place to explain South Korea’s absence from the memorial ceremony held by Japan’s government.
“But we do think it is regrettable that they did not participate,” he told a daily briefing.
Hayashi added that Tokyo had explained to Seoul that Ikuina had not visited Yasukuni Shrine since becoming a lawmaker.
South Korea negotiated a pact with Japan to hold events explicitly mentioning South Korean forced labourers as a condition for backing Tokyo’s bid to list the Sado mine as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
But Yoon’s government drew criticism at home for not pushing Japan harder to recognise the darker aspects of the mine, which Japan celebrates for its long history and contribution to the country’s industrial development.
(Reporting by Jack Kim and Hyunsu Yim in Seoul, Satoshi Sugiyama and Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo; Editing by Christina Fincher and Stephen Coates)