South Korea will not attend Sado mines memorial event in Japan amid lingering historical tensions

South Korea’s government says it has decided not to attend a memorial service near Japan’s Sado Island Gold Mines due to disagreements with Japan over the event, which stirred longstanding tensions over the abuse of Korean forced laborers at the site before the end of World War II. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday it was impossible to settle the disagreements between both governments before the planned event on Sunday. The ministry didn’t specify what the disagreements were. Some South Koreans had criticized the Seoul government for throwing its support behind an event without securing a clear Japanese commitment to highlight the plight of Korean laborers.