Japan has held a memorial ceremony 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 brutal wartime use

The Korean government held its own ceremony on Monday to honor Korean wartime forced laborers at their former lodgings near Japan’s Sado Mine, following Seoul’s decision to boycott a Japan-hosted memorial held on Sunday.

An event to commemorate Japanese and Korean laborers who worked at the gold and silver mine complex on Japan's Sado Island during W

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.