Ecuadorian police raided the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest its former vice president (French)
Yesterday, Friday, Mexico announced the severing of relations with Ecuador after the latter arrested former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas from inside the Mexican embassy where he had sought refuge last December.
Press reports reported that Ecuadorian police forces stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito and arrested Glass, in a move that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador described as a blatant violation of international law and Mexico's sovereignty.
Obrador instructed the Foreign Minister to immediately suspend diplomatic relations with Ecuador.
Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena said that the Ecuadorian police storming of the embassy led to injuries among the Mexican diplomatic staff.
Glass, twice convicted of corruption and sentenced to prison, has remained inside the Mexican embassy in Quito since he sought refuge there at the end of last year, to request political asylum, which Mexico approved on Friday.
For its part, Ecuador said that the asylum offer made by Mexico to Glass - who was vice president during the leftist government of Rafael Correa between 2013 and 2017 - was illegal.
She added that each embassy has a single goal, which is to provide diplomatic space to strengthen relations between countries, stressing that no criminal can be considered a politically persecuted person, as she put it.
Mexico's granting of asylum to Glass came on Friday, the day after Ecuador's decision to expel Raquel Seror, the Mexican ambassador to Quito, after the Mexican president's statements regarding political violence in Ecuador, in which he pointed out that the assassination of politician Fernando Villavicencio in Ecuador last August contributed to the electoral victory of current President Daniel Noboa.
Source: Agencies