As a result of police brutally entering Ecuador’s embassy in Quito to apprehend former vice president Jorge Glas, Mexico has severed diplomatic relations with Ecuador, further eroding relations between the two nations.
After requesting political asylum in December, Glas—who has been found guilty twice of corruption—had taken refuge in the Quito embassy, claiming the attorney general’s office was after him.
Ecuador’s presidency stated in a statement on Friday night, “Ecuador is a sovereign nation and we are not going to allow any criminal to stay free,” after police forcibly entered Mexico’s embassy before making the arrest, according to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In retaliation, López Obrador described Glas’s imprisonment as a “authoritarian act,” “a flagrant breach of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico”. He said he had instructed Mexico’s foreign minister to suspend diplomatic ties with Ecuador.
Mexico’s secretary of international relations, Alicia Bárcena, stated that the incident breached the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and that several diplomats were hurt.
The chief of the Mexican consular division outside the Quito embassy, Roberto Canseco, declared, “This is not possible, it cannot be, this is crazy.”
When asked if former vice president Glas had been taken into custody by law enforcement, he responded, “I understand that yes.”
He remarked, “They could kill him, which worries me a lot.” “This is completely out of the ordinary; there is no justification for doing it.”
An inquiry for response from the Associated Press news agency was not immediately answered by Ecuador’s interior ministry or foreign ministry.
The embassy of Mexico in Quito remained under heavy police guard late on Friday.
Tensions between the two nations erupted the day before when López Obrador made remarks on the most recent elections, which Daniel Noboa of Ecuador won, that Ecuador deemed to be “very unfortunate.”
The Ecuadorian government responded by designating the Mexican ambassador as persona non grata.
This article was supported by Reuters and the Associated Press.
