SADO, Japan (AP) — South Korea paid tribute to wartime Korean forced laborers at Japan’s Sado Island Gold Mines in a memorial ceremony on Monday, a day after boycotting a similar event organized by Japan, as tensions over historical atrocities continue to impact relations between the two sides.

By Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) -After boycotting one organised by Tokyo, South Korea held its own memorial event on Monday for compatriots forced to work in a Japanese mine during World War Two, highlighting lingering sensitivities between the countries.

Japan held a memorial ceremony on Sunday near the Sado Island Gold Mines despite a last-minute boycott of the event by South Korea that highlighted tensions between the neighbors over the issue of Korean forced laborers at the site before and during World ...

Relatives of Korean victims and South Korean officials offer a prayer during a memorial service at the site of former Fourth Souai Dormitory for the mine workers from the Korean Peninsula, in Sado, Niigata prefecture, Japan on Nov 25, a day after boycotting a memorial organized by Japanese officials. (AP)

South Korea says it will not attend a ceremony in Japan to commemorate victims of forced labor in the Sado Island Gold Mines. This comes as the two nations seek to draw together amid regional threats.

South Korea’s government says it has decided not to attend a memorial service near Japan’s Sado Island Gold Mines due to unspecified 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.

Efforts by South Korea and Japan to hold a joint memorial service near Japa’s Sado Island Gold Mines, where Koreans were forced to work during Japan’s colonial rule, fell apart on Nov. 24 due to disagreements between both governments.