The director of the Ministry of National Defense following the relocation of the presidential office to Yongsan started in earnest from the morning of the 8th.
At the main building (new building) of Yongsan Ministry of National Defense, where the presidential office will be located, from early this morning, employees of moving companies and military personnel were put in to carry luggage.
An official from the Ministry of National Defense said, "The moving of offices on the fifth floor and above started in earnest this morning."
The departments where the full-scale relocation has started from today are departments excluding the Office of the Minister and Vice Minister of National Defense, the Defense Policy Office, and the Planning and Coordination Office.
Several large trucks from the moving company were repeatedly loaded in front of the main building and moved to another building.
Office furniture, such as electronic products and desks, came out from the departments on the 5th to 10th floors except for the 1st to 4th floors of the main building where major command departments such as the Ministry of National Defense and Vice Minister's Office and the Defense Policy Office are located.
Exercise equipment in the fitness room on the 10th floor was also seen being loaded onto a truck at the entrance.
The new office building for the Ministry of National Defense, which will be used as the presidential office, was completed at the end of October 2003, and Ministry of Defense departments moved in from the beginning of November.
After 19 years of moving in, the Ministry of National Defense vacated the new building and scattered the buildings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the former Defense Acquisition Program Administration.
The relocation of key command departments, such as the Office of the Minister of National Defense and Vice Minister of National Defense, will begin on the 28th after the end of the Korea-US joint exercise in the first half of the year, and the relocation will be completed on the 14th of next month, after the inauguration of President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol.
The Ministry of National Defense continued shredding to prevent leakage of security documents to the outside.
The Power Resources Management Office and Defense Reform Office will be relocated to the annex of the Ministry of National Defense (Gu Office) in Yongsan.
Other departments are distributed at the Army Center and the National Defense Convention.
The Ministry of National Defense facilities headquarters, part of the service support group, other units under direct control, and some support departments currently in the annex will be relocated to the former Defense Acquisition Program Administration building in Huam-dong, Yongsan.
(Photo = Yonhap News)