The South Korean foreign ministry said Tuesday it will check if there is a need to make changes to the exhibits on Japan's wartime forced labor of Koreans at a museum near an old Japanese mine complex newly registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Seoul government has come under criticism for what critics call a lack of efforts to ensure Japan reflects the coercive nature of its forced mobilization of Koreans to the Sado gold and silver mines during World War II, before the mine complex was listed on the UNESCO World Heritage list late last week.

South Korea and Japan, as two members of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, had negotiated on how Japan should demonstrate the wartime forced labor of Koreans at the Sado mines as a condition for Korea's consent to the site winning World Heritage status.

South Korea has agreed to the inscription as Japan has installed exhibits on the mobilization of Koreans to the Sado mines at a local history museum near the mine complex, and promised to carry out its commitments to better reflect its history.

But criticism has arisen in South Korea that the government has not done enough because none of the exhibits have any explanation that Koreans were forcibly taken to toil at the mines during the war, when Korea was under Japan's colonial rule.

"We will work to confirm whether there is anything that needs to be supplemented, or if there is anything that we need to further discuss with Japan," ministry spokesperson Lee Jae-woong said in a press briefing.

"We understand that additional work will continue to further enhance and make the current exhibition more permanent," Lee said.

Regarding the criticism over a lack of demonstration on the coerciveness, a foreign ministry official said the government "did ask" Japan to feature "many contents that would clearly show" the coercive nature, suggesting that Tokyo did not accept the proposal.

"The current exhibition contents are what Japan has ultimately accepted," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The official declined to go into details on the expressions or terms the South Korean government had proposed to Japan.

The foreign ministry has flatly denied a Japanese media report speculating that Seoul had agreed to "take out the term 'forced labor'" from the exhibits.

"The negotiations were uncertain until the last minute and everything was settled at the final stage," the official added.

Japan is considering holding a memorial event for the Sado mine forced laborers as early as September, according to diplomatic sources in Seoul.

Holding a memorial ceremony on a regular basis was part of the agreement between South Korea and Japan for its UNESCO World Heritage inscription.