South Korea on Tuesday decided to provide humanitarian aid to Tehran as tensions persist despite a 14-day ceasefire between the US and Iran.
"We hope this aid will help alleviate the humanitarian situation in the affected regions," the South Korean Foreign Ministry said, according to daily Chosun.
The aid, worth $500,000, will be routed through the International Committee of the Red Cross, it said.
Seoul's aid to Iran comes as the war with the US and Israel, which began on Feb. 28 and halted on April 8 after a 14-day ceasefire, has left more than 3,300 dead, while up to 3.2 million people have been temporarily displaced inside the country.
Earlier, Seoul sent $2 million in aid to Lebanon, which has been devastated by Israeli attacks.
Washington and Tehran held their first face-to-face negotiations since the war broke out in Pakistan's capital over the weekend, but the Islamabad talks remain inconclusive.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday called on the warring parties to "take a courageous step toward peace that the world desperately wants based on the principles of the protection of universal human rights and lessons from history," Yonhap News reported.
The East Asian nation is one of the countries affected by the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, as the war has derailed energy supplies from the Middle East to \ vast majority of Asian nations.
To cushion the economic impact of the Mideast conflict, Lee's government is implementing an extra budget of $17.7 billion.
Seoul has also dispatched special envoys to Algeria and Libya and plans to send another envoy to the Republic of Congo to seek new supply routes amid the Middle East crisis.
