As North Korea’s delegation has arrived in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, they have traveled to their accommodation amid media presence and vehicle maneuvering, as reported by Daum.
On September 23 at approximately 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time, an Air China flight from Beijing landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport carrying a North Korean delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong. The group emerged from the terminal roughly 50 minutes after touchdown, greeted by a pack of waiting reporters shouting questions regarding potential U.S.-North Korea dialogue, Pyongyang’s unyielding nuclear ambitions, and prospects for inter-Korean talks. Kim Son-gyong and Kim Sung, North Korea’s permanent representative to the UN, offered no comment, maintaining absolute silence as they bypassed the press line.
Motorcade Tensions and Diplomatic Protocol at JFK
The arrival marked a stark contrast to the chaotic scenes of the previous year’s General Assembly. Last September, Kim Sung snapped at journalists blocking terminal procedures, angrily demanding, Move aside, you can’t get processed. Have you no tact? You need to have some decency!
Kim also made headlines by briefly boarding the wrong vehicle before scrambling out.
This year, however, the North Korean mission exercised rigid composure. Kim Sung absorbed repeated press inquiries without a single sigh or visible flash of irritation, evidently mindful of the international coverage the previous year’s outburst generated. Kim Son-gyong quickly boarded her waiting transport without incident.
Yet, the quiet departure at the terminal quickly escalated into an aggressive transit escort. Shortly after Kim’s vehicle left JFK Airport, a security escort vehicle trailing the delegation began honking its horn repeatedly and flashing high beams at journalistic vehicles. The hostile driving maneuvers, which included blocking lanes and aggressive tailgating, persisted for roughly 25 kilometers all the way to Roosevelt Island. Similar cat-and-mouse tactics continued outside the delegation’s residential quarters, where vehicles paused and shifted positions to obstruct reporters attempting to capture footage or pose questions before Kim ultimately slipped inside the building.
An Extended Stay and Bilateral Engagements in Manhattan
Kim Son-gyong’s schedule in New York carried a deliberate temporal cushion. Having arrived on September 23, her high-profile address before the General Assembly was not scheduled until five days later, on September 28, placing her speech on the final day of the UN’s general debate.
While waiting out the lengthy interim, the North Korean vice foreign minister utilized the diplomatic circuit to meet with allied state representatives. On September 24, Kim held a formal bilateral meeting with Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov, cementing ties with traditional partners as international attention concurrently tracked broader signals from Washington regarding stalled denuclearization talks.
