The government is looking to relocate the Army academy out of Seoul while keeping the Navy and Air Force academies in place, sources said Wednesday, backtracking from its original plan to merge them into a unified military college. The defense ministry recently briefed lawmakers on the plan to move the Korea Military Academy to the central-western region of Chungcheong, while retaining the Naval Academy in the southern coastal county of Jinhae and the Air Force Academy in the central provincial city of Cheongju, sources familiar with the matter said. The latest proposal still calls for establishing a joint academy in the Jaundae military complex in the central city of Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul, but likely at a smaller scale. If finalized, the plan would mark a retreat from an initial July proposal to merge the three service academies into a single institution inside the Jaundae compound. The revision comes after Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul signaled an adjustment to the initial framework, a move widely seen as a compromise in the face of strong pushback from alumni