South Korea on Tuesday permitted a private aid group to contact North Korea for their plan to provide humanitarian assistance despite North Korea's new missile test, which it said was an intercontinental ballistic missile. 

Sources said the Ministry of Unification gave the approval earlier in the day in line with the government's stance to retain private-sector exchanges between the two Koreas.

"(The government) will sternly respond to North Korean missile launches, but will also continue its stance on private-level exchanges," a high-level government official told Yonhap News Agency.

It marks Seoul's 50th approval, since the Moon Jae-in administration's launch, of private groups' request for contact with North Korea to proceed with their aid projects or other exchange programs.

The Moon administration has said it will be flexible in allowing private-level exchanges between the two Koreas although it will sternly react to North Korea's military provocations. (Yonhap)