Finnish foreign ministry replies to DPRK

Boat operating between Helsinki and Stockholm; it was reported that the DPRK couriers travelled through Finland because they wanted to take one of these. The Finnish Foreign Ministry has sent a reply to the diplomatic note sent by the DPRK embassy in Stockholm over the train incident in Kouvola, Finland, in which Finnish authorities forcibly removed two North Korean diplomatic couriers from the after they had refused two show their tickets and prove their diplomatic status in a violent manner. Earlier notes: • DPRK embassy: Finland violated human rights of the diplomatic couriers (Feb 25, 2007) • North Korean diplomatic couriers fight with Finnish police (Feb 18, 2007) The Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat says in the article linked above that the note was sent already last week. The reply states that according to the Vienna accord, diplomatic couriers needs to carry a document proving the status, which the North Koreans were lacking. (Update: I did not detect anything on the issue in the print edition of the paper over the weekend, so it's unlikely there's going to be much more about this in the news.) Categories at del.icio.us/hunjang: DPRK ∙ Korea-Finland