Foreign Minister Inquired Into Sites for Foreign Embassy Relocation

While social disputes over capital relocation are heating up, it became known yesterday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently inquired of foreign embassies in Korea about whether or not they would relocate their embassies to the new administrative capital, how to purchase sites for the embassies, the scale of the embassies to be needed, and other relocation questions.

“We requested 95 diplomatic and consular offices, including 87 countries having embassies and 8 missions of international organizations, to make it clear by the end of August, whether or not there is an intention to transfer the offices, to purchase or lease sites for embassies, and how big the necessary site is,” said a government official.

This official said, “The inquiries were made to accurately determine the demand for sites for foreign embassies in order to positively reflect it in the building plans for a foreign office complex in the new administrative capital.”

Another government official said, “Despite large-scale disputes over the relocation of the capital, a related bill was passed by parliament, and the region where the new capital will be built is virtually fixed, so we are just making preparations for the transfer of foreign embassies.”

In the meantime, Lee Choon-hee, deputy chief of the Presidential Committee on Administrative Capital Relocation, and Chun Jae-man, senior coordinator for planning and management, will hold a briefing session on July 14 at the Foreign Ministry building, intended primarily for diplomatic envoys in Korea, about how the capital relocation project is going and the building plan for the foreign office complex.

Hyong-gwon Pu bookum90@donga.com