Argentine FM's luggage searched at US airport

Security agents stopped Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa and searched his luggage at an airport in the United States Friday, according to press reports here on Saturday.

The incident occurred when Bielsa and his aide, Anibal Gutierrez, asked to get off a plane whose takeoff was delayed six hours at Miami International Airport, said an Argentine diplomat was quoted as saying.

The foreign minister, who was on a stopover on an American Airlines flight from Haiti to New York, had visited Argentina's peacekeeping troops stationed at the Haitian city of Gonaives Saturday afternoon.

Bielsa told the US agents that he had a right to change his flight after being delayed for hours without any explanation from the airline, saying he was "a passenger, not a hostage."

Source: Xinhua