REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - Indonesian Embassy in Pyongyang, North Korea, prepares contingency plan after Pyongyang asks diplomats to consider leaving because of heightened tension after weeks of bellicose exchanges.

"We have prepared contingency plan to anticipate every possibility. The implementation will be based on the development in North Korea," spokesman of Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Michael Tene, said on Saturday in a written statement. 

There are currently 30 Indonesian citizens living in North Korea. Tene said all of them were diplomats and their families. "We are communicating with our embassy in Pyongyang to monitor the situation," he said.

Staff at other embassies in North Korea appeared to be remaining in place on Saturday even though North Korean authorities told diplomatic missions they could not guarantee their safety from next Wednesday - after declaring that conflict was inevitable amid joint US-South Korean military exercises due to last until the end of the month.

North Korea has been angry since new UN sanctions were imposed following its third nuclear weapons test in February. Its rage has apparently been compounded by joint US-South Korean military exercises that began on March 1.

Most countries saw the appeal to the missions as little more than strident rhetoric after weeks of threatening to launch a nuclear strike on the United States and declarations of war against the South.

The United Nations said its humanitarian workers remained active across North Korea. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, however, remained "deeply concerned" about tensions, heightened since the imposition of UN sanctions against the North for its third nuclear arms test last in February.

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