Japan will not consider South Korea's opposition in deciding whether to push ahead with a plan to nominate a gold and silver mine site on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture for the 2023 UNESCO World Heritage list, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Monday.
Hayashi made the remarks at a House of Representatives session after South Korea said it was deplorable that a Japanese state cultural body had recommended that Tokyo seek listing of the mine, where Koreans were subject to forced labor during Japan's 1910-45 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, and called for immediate retraction of the plan.
"We are not giving any diplomatic consideration to South Korea," Hayashi said. "We are comprehensively considering within the government what would be most effective" in seeking the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's World Heritage designation, he added.