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The five locations include Seoul's embassies in Cambodia, Laos
and Vietnam, as well as consulates in Vladivostok, Russia, and
Shenyang, China, the ministry said in a statement.
The terrorism alert level was raised from Attention to Alert,
the second highest among South Korea's four classifications,
which indicates the chances of an attack are strong, the foreign
ministry said.
Separately, South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS)
said it had a "number of indications that North Korea is
preparing to carry out terrorist attacks against our diplomatic
officers and citizens," but did not elaborate on the nature of
the threats.
Pyongyang has dispatched agents to those countries to tighten
surveillance of the South Korean missions, the NIS said.
The North Korean embassy in London did not respond to repeated
phone calls for requests for comment.
The North's government-controlled media has criticized
allegations of terrorism against it as U.S.-led efforts to
discredit opponents of Washington.
The foreign ministry statement also said South Korea's National
Counter Terrorism Center held a meeting on Thursday to discuss
measures to protect the diplomatic offices and officials who
work there.
During the Cold War, North Korea was accused of carrying out
several attacks on civilian targets, including bombings at a
Seoul airport and a South Korean airliner in the 1980s.
The United States placed North Korea back on the list of state
sponsors of terrorism in 2017, citing the killing of Kim Jong
Nam, the older half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un,
which was carried out with VX nerve agent at an airport in
Malaysia.
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Editing by Josh Smith and Christian
Schmollinger)
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