South Korea is considering "various" unilateral sanctions against North Korea following the adoption of tough sanctions by the U.N. Security Council on the communist regime, a government spokesman said Friday.

On Wednesday, the UNSC unanimously adopted a new resolution punishing North Korea for its nuclear and long-range rocket tests earlier this year. The sanction measures include mandatory inspections of all cargo going in and out of North Korea and a ban on the country's exports of coal and other mineral resources.

"The government, as the president said, is currently doing its best to create an environment in which North Korea will realize it can't possibly survive with nuclear and will have no choice but to change," Jeong Joon-hee, spokesman of the Ministry of Unification, said during a regular press briefing.

"We are contemplating actual steps for this and reviewing various measures," he said, adding that the exact time of the decision will likely be announced soon.

South Korea is reportedly considering a ban on the entry of vessels traveling through North Korea. It already has a wide array of sanctions in place over the North's sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010.

Last month, Seoul shut down an inter-Korean industrial park in the North's border city of Kaesong in response to the North's firing of a long-range rocket on Feb. 7.

According to North Korean state media, leader Kim Jong-un on Thursday ordered the country's nuclear arsenal on standby, apparently in anger over the new U.N. sanctions.

"North Korea is expressing its determination and defiance in the face of the U.N. sanctions, and the remarks are likely aimed at strengthening the regime," Jeong said. (Yonhap)