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oreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said there was no urgent need to repatriate about 30 Indonesians in North Korea, even though Pyongyang had said that it would be unable to protect international diplomats in the country after April 10.

Marty said he maintained a six-hourly communication with the Indonesian ambassador in Pyongyang ever since tensions in the Korean Peninsula heightened due to the North’s threat to launch a nuclear attack after saying conflict was inevitable amid the joint US-South Korean military exercises, that are to last until the end of the month.

“Indonesia is keeping an eye on the situation. We update assessments of the situation everyday,” Marty told the press at the State Palace on Monday.

Indonesia, according to Marty, would be “careful in addressing the situation. We don’t want our actions to exacerbate the crisis. So we will act in a measured manner.”

So far, Indonesian diplomats and their family members had not urged the government to bring them back to Indonesia, Marty added.

North Korea is widely recognized as being years away from perfecting the technology to back up its bold threats of a pre-emptive strike on the US, but some nuclear experts say it might have the know-how to fire a nuclear-tipped missile at South Korea and Japan, which host US military bases.

No one can be certain how much technological progress the North has made, aside from perhaps the few that are close to its secretive leadership. It is highly unlikely that Pyongyang would launch such an attack, given the formidable retaliation it would likely face.

The North’s third nuclear test on Feb. 12, which prompted the toughest UN Security Council sanctions yet against Pyongyang, is presumed to have advanced its ability to miniaturize a nuclear device.

Experts say it is easier to design a nuclear warhead for a shorter-range missile than one for an intercontinental missile that could target the US.

David Albright at the Institute for Science and International Security says North Korea has the capability to mount a warhead on its Rodong missile, which has a range of 1,280 kilometers and could hit South Korea and most of Japan.

Albright contends that the experience of Pakistan could serve as precedent.

Pakistan bought the Rodong from North Korea after its first flight test in 1993, then adapted and produced it for its own use.

Pakistan, which conducted its first nuclear test in 1998, is said to have taken less than 10 years to miniaturize a warhead before that test, Albright said.

North Korea also obtained technology from the trafficking network of AQ Khan, a disgraced pioneer of Pakistan’s nuclear program, acquiring centrifuges for enriching uranium. According to the Congressional Research Service, Khan may also have supplied a Chinese-origin nuclear weapon design he provided to Libya and Iran, which could have helped the North in developing a warhead for a ballistic missile.

But Siegfried Hecker at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, who has visited North Korea seven times and has been granted unusual access to its nuclear facilities, is skeptical that the North has advanced that far in miniaturization of a nuclear device.

“Nobody outside of a small elite in North Korea knows — and even they don’t know for sure,” he said. “I agree that we cannot rule it out for one of their shorter-range missiles, but we simply don’t know.”

Minister Marty said the Indonesian embassy in Pyongyang had prepared a contingency plan to anticipate the worst.

Indonesia and North Korea have maintained good diplomatic ties since 1961.