South Korea has approved an aid group's request to make contact with North Korea, Seoul's Unification Ministry said Friday, in an apparent reflection of the South's approach toward resuming inter-Korean exchanges under its new liberal president.

The approval for private-level, inter-Korean contact is the first since President Moon Jae In took office on May 10, and the first since January 2016, when North Korea's fourth nuclear test prompted Seoul to suspend cross-border humanitarian assistance.

"The new government will strongly respond to North Korea's provocations, but a private-level exchange, including humanitarian assistance, will be considered in a flexible way within the boundary of not disrupting the frame of the international community's sanctions (on North Korea)," ministry spokeswoman Lee Yoo Jin told reporters.

She said the approval was given to the Korean Sharing Movement, which is engaged in North Korean aid efforts, after the group made a request in early May.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula remain high as North Korea continues to launch ballistic missiles in defiance of international warnings, with the latest test-fired on Sunday, and shows signs it is ready to carry out its sixth nuclear test.

With the government's consent, the group is expected to discuss relief efforts, including joint malaria prevention, with the North Korean side by fax or email.

After their initial discussions, the group is expected to ask for the government's permission to visit North Korea to carry out its projects.

South Koreans need prior government permission if they want to visit North Korea.

Moon said in his inaugural speech he is willing to visit Pyongyang under the right circumstances, raising expectations he will take a milder approach to North Korea, compared to that of his conservative predecessor Park Geun Hye.

Limited humanitarian assistance to the North under Park's administration was eventually suspended after North Korea's nuclear test in January 2016. It only approved, in a rare exception, the Eugene Bell Foundation Korea's delivery of medication for tuberculosis to North Korea.