ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s interior minister on Thursday apologized for a police raid on the premises of the North Korean embassy in Islamabad.
Police on Monday raided the North Korean embassy over reports liquor was being stored there. In a letter to the Inspector General Islamabad Police quoted by local media, the embassy has called the incident a violation of the Vienna Convention.
On Thursday, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said such raids were outside the purview of police.
“It should have not happened," he told reporters. "It is not our job to monitor what is going and coming out from there [Embassy]. Our job is to provide security to embassies. This was a mistake, we apologize.”
In its letter to the Islamabad police, the embassy said the mission "strongly condemned the unlawful entry into the premises of the DPR [Democratic Peoples Republic] Korea by the Pakistani law enforcement police against the international Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”
“The Embassy of Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea expresses its serious regrets on this incident and requests (Pakistan’s) Ministry of Foreign Affairs and security organisations to undertake a thorough investigation against those involved and take measures to prevent recurrence of such incidents."
