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North Korea Accuses U.S. of ‘Mugging’ Its Diplomats in New York

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Sunday accused United States officials of “mugging” its diplomats at Kennedy International Airport by seizing a diplomatic package they were carrying.

A North Korean delegation, returning home from a United Nations conference in New York, was about to board a plane on Friday when more than 20 agents and police officers from the Department of Homeland Security confiscated the package, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

“As the diplomats vigorously resisted, they grabbed the diplomatic package using physical violence and made off,” he said, adding that the North Koreans were carrying a valid diplomatic courier certificate.

“This clearly shows that the U.S. is a felonious and lawless gangster state,” he said. “The U.S. should reflect on its reckless act and be fully aware of the grave consequences to follow.”

The spokesman said North Korea “regards this mugging by the U.S. as an intolerable act of infringement upon the sovereignty” of the country, and demanded an explanation and an apology. The spokesman was not quoted by name, as is common in North Korean news reports.

He did not disclose what the diplomatic package contained.

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said its officers assisted in the inspection of three North Korean citizens on Friday, seizing “multiple media items and packages.” It did not explain why the items were seized, but said the North Koreans attempted to retrieve them.

“According to the U.S. State Department, the North Korean citizens were not accredited members of North Korea’s mission to the U.N. and had no entitlement to diplomatic immunity,” the statement said. “The package in question had no protection from inspection.”

North Korea said its delegation had attended a session of the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities.

The controversy comes at a delicate time in relations between North Korea and the United States. On Tuesday, North Korea released an American college student, Otto F. Warmbier, who is in a coma after 17 months of captivity. American doctors said Mr. Warmbier had suffered extensive brain damage. North Korea said it had freed him on “humanitarian grounds” but did not reveal details of his medical condition.

Mr. Warmbier was detained in January 2016 while trying to leave North Korea, which he visited on a tourist visa. He was subsequently sentenced to 15 years of hard labor on charges of committing the “hostile act” of stealing a political poster from a wall in his hotel.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: North Korea Accuses U.S. Officials of ‘Mugging’ Its Diplomats at Airport in New York. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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