South Korea will start to allow online browsing of declassified diplomatic documents from next year as it tries to boost public accessibility to historic records, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

Currently, the foreign ministry annually releases major diplomatic documents for public browsing permitted only at the Diplomatic Archives in southern Seoul. Documents that are over 30 years old are subject to public viewing.

From 2014, the ministry will provide abridged versions of the diplomatic dossiers through the archive’s website, in addition to the current off-line release, the ministry said.

The ministry plans to revamp the website’s search system in order to help users better access the documents. It also plans to build a smartphone application to draw more users.

Since 1994, the ministry has made public 17,400 volumes of diplomatic documents, declassified 30 years after their creation as part of efforts to raise administrative transparency.

This year, the ministry has been releasing diplomatic documents written in 1982. (Yonhap News)