An association of South Korea's 56 civic aid groups on Tuesday urged the South Korean government to lift restrictions on humanitarian aid to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The Council for Cooperation with the DPRK, an non-governmental organization in South Korea, said at a press conference here that the humanitarian aid to the DPRK should not be affected by political factors.

The council described the government's measures on blocking delivery of aid supplies to the DPRK as "unhumanitarian actions", and the ban on all visits by South Korean citizens to the DPRK as "hard to understand" because it ignored South Korean donators' legal right in ensuring the distribution of the donations.

The council called Seoul and Pyongyang to approve its plan to set up a permanent office in Pyongyang to secure transparency in distributing aid shipments in the DPRK.

The council also said it will raise money for humanitarian aid to the DPRK via civilian channels in the future, instead of applying for government's inter-Korean cooperation funds, noting the possibility of arranging its own aid projects if the government continues to restrict humanitarian aid to the DPRK.

South Korea last month unveiled a series of punitive measures against the DPRK, after a multinational investigation team concluded that a 1,200-ton navy vessel that went into waters near a tense maritime border with the DPRK in March, was torpedoed by the DPRK. The measures include downsizing the operation of the Kaesong park, suspending all inter-Korean cooperation apart from the Kaesong program, and relaunching psychological warfare against Pyongyang.

The government also said humanitarian aid to the DPRK will be suspended in principle, apart from "pure humanitarian aid" for vulnerable groups of people such as infants and young children.

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