Japan plans to rebut UNESCO's recommendations that the country should do more to explain about Korean victims of wartime forced labor at its Tokyo information center on industrial sites listed as World Cultural Heritage sites, government sources said Saturday.
At UNESCO's World Heritage Committee session held from Friday to July 31, Japan plans to explain that its exhibition at the Industrial Heritage Information Center on workers from Korea forced to work in the Hashima Coal Mine off Nagasaki, one of the 23 registered sites, is based on historical facts and appropriate, the sources said.
As Japan is not a member of this term's 21-nation committee, it cannot be involved in discussions or adoptions of documents. But Kenko Sone, the Foreign Ministry's director general for cultural affairs, plans to attend the online session as an observer and expects to be requested to speak on the matter, the sources said.
A feud over wartime labor and compensation has caused Japan-South Korea relations to sink to their lowest point in decades, even as the two Asian neighbors need to cooperate in addressing issues such as North Korean nuclear and missile threats.
South Korea has criticized the exhibits at the information center for falling short in explanations about the Korean victims of forced labor during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945.
A South Korean civic group said Friday it strongly supports the recommendations, claiming exhibits at the facility lack explanations about the victims.
The recommendations by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, released Monday, following its inspection of the center that opened last year may be adopted around next Thursday during the session.
When the "Site of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution" was added to the World Cultural Heritage list in 2015, Japan promised that it would explain the situation surrounding the Korean wartime workers, based on an understanding that they were "brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions."
At the committee's session, Japan plans to say that it is "sincerely" making good on that promise, the sources said.
UNESCO said in its report assessing the center that "measures to allow an understanding of those brought against their will and forced to work are currently insufficient."
The body recognized that the center contains a variety of research material relating to the lives of workers, including oral testimonies, but said "there is no display that could be characterized as adequately serving the purpose of remembering the victims."
South Korea had initially opposed adding the Hashima Coal Mine, also known as "Battleship Island," and other locations to the World Cultural Heritage list under "Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution," saying Koreans were forced to work at some sites.
But it dropped its opposition on condition that Japan publicly acknowledges that Koreans were coerced to work at such sites.
However, Tokyo and Seoul have been at odds over the definition of forced labor.
Related coverage:
South Korea group supports UNESCO's urge on Japan over forced labor
