N. Korea Pulls Out of U.N. Summit

Sept. 6 -- North Korea pulled out of a U.N. summit in New York and a hoped-for meeting with South Korea’s president because of “rude and provocative” treatment by U.S. security on Tuesday at Frankfurt airport, North Korea said.

The delegation to the U.N. Millennium Summit was led by KimYong-nam, chairman of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, who in North Korean protocol is head of state and No. 2 in the government hierarchy.

There had been hopes that he would meet South KoreanPresident Kim Dae-Jung in New York to follow up the June summit between the two Koreas.

The delegation had been due to fly on American Airlines onMonday to join more than 100 heads of state gathering in NewYork for the summit, which begins today.

‘Hooligans and Rogues’

Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon told a news conferencethat the delegation had decided to return home because of its“rude and provocative” treatment by U.S. security staff.

“U.S. air security officials … opened suitcases andhandbags of each member of the presidential entourage, forcedthem to take off clothes and shoes and thoroughly searched eventhe sensitive parts of the body,” he said.

North Korea warned of retaliation against “an unbearablemockery of the sovereignty of an independent state and a gravechallenge to the United Nations and the summit organized by it”in a Foreign Ministry statement published by the North Koreannews agency KCNA.

“The recent happening goes to prove that the U.S. is theworld’s biggest state of hooligans and rogues. It is anentirely legitimate exercise of our sovereignty for us to takea strong measure against the brigandish and brazen-faced act ofthe U.S.

“The U.S. will come to know what a dear price it will haveto pay for having hurt our people’s dignity,” it said.

Choe said there could obviously be no meeting with SouthKorean officials in New York, but North Korea did not blame itsneighbor in any way for the incident and he stressed that talkshad been going well.