Japan’s efforts to inscribe a debatable former gold mine on Sado Island on the UNESCO World Heritage List are being delayed because of the application form, officials said.
Shinsuke Suematsu, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, said Thursday that next year’s long-awaited recording will be difficult.
Japan named the 400-year-old site in northern Japan a UNESCO World Heritage Site, following a rise of the ruling ruling party’s hard-line, far-right revisionists.
He submitted a letter of recommendation to UNESCO before the February 1 deadline.
He had hoped that a UNESCO advisory organization would the site later this year before a resolution around May 2023 whether or not to raise it to the list before prior review through the World Heritage Committee.
South Korea opposed the registration, saying the site is irrelevant because of its abuse of Korean staff, a sensitive factor that still strains ties between neighbors.
Many Koreans who brought to Japan their colonization of the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945 were subjected to forced labor in the mine.
Suematsu said UNESCO found that some of the letters of advice Japan had submitted were insufficient.
He advised Japan to resubmit registration documents “to assist in an elegant and proper examination” through UNESCO.
The new filing says the mine site is unlikely to be included in the 2023 list, the minister declined to comment on the new application process.
(Warning: this story is generated from a syndicated feed; only the symbol and name may have been modified through www. republicworld. com)