Despite North Korea's recent warning to foreign diplomatic missions to leave Pyongyang, no embassy has yet to make a move out of the communist state, Seoul officials said Saturday.

"We don't believe there's any foreign mission about to leave Pyongyang," one South Korean government official said. "Most foreign governments view the North Korean message as a way of ratcheting up tension on the Korean Peninsula."

According to media reports Friday, North Korea's foreign ministry asked foreign embassies based in Pyongyang to leave, saying a war could break out soon and the safety of foreigners cannot be guaranteed. The reports were later confirmed by South Korea and the U.S.

There are a total of 24 foreign diplomatic missions in Pyongyang, including the Chinese and Russian embassies. There also are a handful of representative offices of international agencies in the capital.

South Korean officials said they were trying to analyze specific details and intentions of North Korea's message and added that Seoul wanted to handle the situation in a calm manner.

Officials said they believed it was part of North Korea's ongoing propaganda campaign.

"North Korea is perhaps saying it's going to be an enemy, not North Korea, that will launch an attack," one government official said. "This appears to be a propaganda war to dump responsibility for the instability on the peninsula on the U.S. and South Korea"

Another noted that the North Korean move is consistent with its pattern of blaming outside aggressors for its weapons of mass destruction program.

"This looks to be their strategy to deliver the message that, 'We're developing nuclear weapons because the Americans are putting pressure on us," the official said.

Earlier, the U.S. State Department confirmed media reports that the North Korean government had passed its warning to the foreign diplomatic missions in its capital.

The British government said it had no immediate plan to move its diplomats out of Pyongyang. Germany and Sweden also said they had no plans, either, to evacuate diplomats from the communist country at present.

Berlin said it is looking into safety issues with other countries with diplomatic missions in Pyongyang. Sweden's embassy in Pyongyang acts as "protecting power" for the United States which has no diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Indonesia, on the other hand, said it is reviewing the option of pulling out its diplomats following the North Korean warning, although it too has no plan to do so at the moment. Jakarta has 30 diplomats and their families stationed in North Korea.

South Korea's government, meanwhile, said that it has informed foreign diplomatic missions in Seoul that there are no signs the North would launch an attack, so there is no need to be overly concerned about the safety of its citizens in the country.

Reflecting this, the U.S. Embassy had sent a message to U.S.

citizens in South Korea that there was no specific information to suggest an imminent threat from the North. (Yonhap News)