Foreign Minister Song Min-soon (C) looks at photographs of Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis during the Second World War as he visits the 'Hall of Names' at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem on Sunday./AFP

Foreign Minister Song Min-soon was at the receiving end of some lax protocol during a visit to Israel on Sunday. The Foreign Ministry on Monday said Song, who arrived in Israel after winding up a visit to Palestine, was taken to a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in a limousine provided by the host government. But the Volvo sedan looked nothing like the sort of limousine that would normally convey a visiting chief diplomat. Not only did it have a scratch mark on the outside door and the letter V missing from the Volvo logo, it also got a flat tire during the journey, inconveniencing Song, who had to switch to another car reserved for security guards.

Nor was that all. On arrival at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Song was greeted by the wrong South Korean flag. The flag, or Taegukgi, which was reportedly made by Israeli officials, had the four trigrams placed at the corners of the flag in the wrong places. Cynics suspect Israel made an "intentional mistake" to express its displeasure that Song visited Palestine before Israel, but a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said, "The order of visits was suggested by Israel, but there was an obvious protocol lapse. I understand that Israel has expressed its regret and apologized for this."

(englishnews@chosun.com )