Diplomats stationed in Seoul are starting to raise their voices over a long-building government plan to eventually move the Ministry of Foreign Affairs out of the capital, concerned that shifting the ministry some 110 kilometers south to Sejong could make routine diplomatic work noticeably harder.
The relocation sits inside a broader administrative push that touches 44 government ministries and agencies in total. Twenty-seven are slated to move in two waves during 2027, while the remaining 17, including Foreign Affairs alongside Unification and Defense, are expected to shift in stages through 2031 as new facilities are built.
A ministry Seoul's embassies rely on staying close
More than 110 foreign missions currently operate out of Seoul, clustered in a city where international business, resident communities and the Foreign Ministry itself have long sat within easy reach of one another. That proximity is exactly what diplomats fear losing.
One diplomat from an Asian mission described the prospect bluntly, noting that shifting an embassy's own operations would be difficult given how much of its corporate and resident community is rooted in Seoul. Another diplomat pointed to a more mundane but persistent worry, the simple inconvenience of having staff travel back and forth between Seoul and Sejong just to handle routine communication with the ministry.
A European diplomat offered a similar assessment, describing the planned move as an awkward complication for day-to-day diplomatic engagement rather than a dramatic rupture, the kind of friction that adds up over countless small meetings and errands.