NK Embassy fury at London hair salon ad

Source:Agencies Published: 2014-4-18 0:23:01

North Korea has written an official letter of complaint to Britain over a London hair salon's advert implying leader Kim Jong-un has a bad hairstyle, the Foreign Office confirmed Thursday.

A hair salon in West London put up a giant poster of the North Korean leader in its window after reading unconfirmed media reports that men in the reclusive Asian state had been ordered to have the same hairdo.

The promotional poster read, "Bad Hair Day? 15 percent off all gent cuts through the month of April."

With its shaved sides and bowl-like shape, Kim Jong-un's distinctive haircut has been a light-hearted talking point for North Korea watchers.

But officials at the country's embassy, which is just a short walk away from the salon, visited to complain and wrote to the Foreign Office asking it to take "necessary action" to stop "the provocation," a British diplomatic source said.

The source said the Foreign Office was considering its response.

A Foreign Office spokesman told AFP, "We have received a letter from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Embassy and will respond in due course."

The embassy, located in a semi-detached house near the hair salon, also filed a complaint to the police.

A spokeswoman for London's Metropolitan police told Reuters on Wednesday that the complaint had been investigated.

"We spoke to all parties involved and there were no offences," the spokeswoman said.

Mo Nabbach, manager of the barbershop in South Ealing, West London, told the local media that he only put the poster up after reading reports of North Korean students being forced to adopt their leader's hairstyle.

"'We always put up little offers in the window, it's harmless,"Karim Nabbach, 26, a barber in the salon was quoted by the Metro daily as saying.

 Nabbach said he and his colleagues did not realize the North Korean Embassy was a 10-minute walk away.

The poster had been taken down by Wednesday, according to AFP reports.

Agencies

Posted in: Asia-Pacific

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