Seoul: South Korea seeks to award a Japanese civic group for its role in the recovery of victims' remains at the site of a 1942 Japanese coal mine disaster where more than 100 Korean forced laborers died, Interior Minister Yun Ho-jung has said.

According to Yonhap News Agency, this would mark the first time the South Korean government bestows a state decoration to a Japanese civic organization since Korea's liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule. Yun stated his intention to honor the Association to Etch the Calamity of the Under Sea Coal Mine Disaster into History during an interview, citing a recent bilateral agreement to conduct DNA analysis to identify the remains recovered at the Chosei Mine last year.

"The Japanese government had previously not acknowledged that there were victims at the Chosei coal mine site," Yun explained. "That's why it was South Korean divers who worked with the Japanese civic group that found the remains. There will be a government award for the Japanese civic group and our divers who participated in the remains recovery."

In 1942, a flood at the Chosei coal mine in Japan's western Yamaguchi Prefecture killed 183 workers, including 136 Koreans who had been forcibly mobilized. The Japanese civic group has been investigating the disaster and recovering the victims' remains since its formation in 1991.

Through crowdfunding, the organization conducted underwater recovery efforts and found four human bone fragments, including a skull, last August, renewing interest in the disaster. South Korean divers Kim Kyung-soo and Kim Soo-eun participated in the recovery of the remains.

Last week, South Korea and Japan agreed to conduct DNA analysis during President Lee Jae Myung's summit talks with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, raising hopes the remains could be returned to the victims' families. The interior ministry has already decided to give a minister's commendation to the Japanese group and the divers, with plans to deliver the commendation next month in Japan.

Meanwhile, Yun expressed willingness to pursue state awards for others, including a Japanese journalist who uncovered a list of passengers on a Japanese ship that sank in 1945 while repatriating Koreans, resulting in hundreds of deaths.