South Korea’s new administration has processed six reports from civilian organizations about plans to contact North Korea since taking power early this month, ending a prolonged freeze under the previous government that effectively blocked inter-Korean exchanges.

The Yoon Suk-yeol administration stopped processing such proposals to contact the DPRK in 2023. While it made a brief exception following devastating floods in North Korea in summer 2024, the unification ministry later started rejecting contact requests again, citing Pyongyang’s lack of response.