The UNESCO World Heritage Committee unanimously decided Saturday to register the Sado Island Gold Mines in Niigata Prefecture as a World Cultural Heritage site.
The site, which is associated with Korean wartime labor and was once the world’s largest gold mine complex, was approved for inscription on the heritage list at a committee meeting in New Delhi.
In June, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises the UNESCO committee, made a recommendation seeking additional information on the gold mines on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture.
Alleging that many people from the Korean Peninsula were forced to work at the mining complex, also including silver mines, on the island in Niigata Prefecture during World War II, when the peninsula was under Japan’s colonial rule, South Korea initially responded harshly to Japan’s move to seek the historic industrial site’s heritage registration.
To obtain Seoul’s consent, Tokyo launched bilateral negotiations.
Meanwhile, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), which advises the UNESCO committee, made three recommendations to Japan last month, including the removal from the proposed site a district with many remains of relatively new mines built in the post-Edo period from 1868.
ICOMOS also called on Japan to give visitors to the site explanations and displays about all periods in which mining took place.
South Korean officials have also said that Japan has promised to take concrete measures to showcase the entire history of the Sado mines.