Tokyo snubbed a 1957 request by Seoul to help some 43,000 Koreans shipped to Sakhalin by Japan during the war leave the island, Japanese diplomatic documents declassified Tuesday show.
The Foreign Ministry turned down the request based on doubts by senior ministry officials over whether the stranded Koreans suffered by being sent to Sakhalin to work for Japan.
South Korea, which did not have diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union at that time, asked Japan to help the Korean laborers on Sakhalin return home because Japan and the Soviet Union reopened relations in 1956.