Japan won UNESCO world heritage status for 23 of its modern industrial sites after conceding to South Korea’s demand that the registration make clear some of the locations used forced laborers from the Korean peninsula.
Japan said “numerous Koreans worked under cruel conditions after being mobilized against their will” and promised to set up an information center to honor the victims, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday on its website.
South Korea had for years opposed Japan’s UNESCO bid, saying it overlooks Koreans’ suffering at seven of the sites, including a mine on Hashima island nicknamed Battleship Island. South Korea’s backing for Japan at UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee meeting in Germany boosts momentum for a thaw in relations between the two neighbors. Their leaders last month exchanged visits to each other’s embassy on the 50th anniversary of a treaty normalizing ties.
Historical tensions stemming from Japan’s 1910-1945 rule of the Korean peninsula have undermined ties between the two U.S. allies in recent years, weighing on their trade and strategic cooperation. South Korean President Park Geun Hye has refused to hold a bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe until Japan does more for Korean women forced into sexual servitude for Japanese soldiers during World War II. Some of the women are threatening to sue Abe in the U.S. if Japan and South Korea fail to reach a satisfactory deal for compensation.