MEXICO CITY (AP) — The president of Mexico stated on Thursday that as part of a complaint to the highest U.N. court on Ecuador’s police raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito last week, his nation is seeking that Ecuador be expelled from the organization.
Since Ecuadorian officials broke into the diplomatic post late last week to detain former vice president Jorge Glas, who had been holed up there seeking asylum in Mexico, tensions between Ecuador and Mexico have skyrocketed.
According to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, his nation has petitioned the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands, requesting that Ecuador be expelled from the United Nations.
According to the UN Security Council charter, “the Court should approve the expulsion, and there should be no veto,” stated Lopez Obrador.
In addition, López Obrador stated that Mexico is expecting a public apology, damages reimbursement, and a pledge not to repeat the raid from Ecuador related to last week. Gabriela Sommerfeld, the foreign minister of Ecuador, declared that her nation would stand by its decisions and that an apology “is not something that is under discussion at this moment.”
Since Glas sought sanctuary at Mexico’s embassy in December, the two nations have been at odds over the convicted felon and fugitive.
Ecuador has maintained that Mexico should not have been contemplating granting Glas asylum since he is a criminal, not a political target. Ecuadorian police stormed the embassy walls and gained entry on April 5.
Pushing a huge cabinet in front of a door, Roberto Canseco, Mexico’s chief of consular affairs and the highest ranking diplomat present since Ecuador dismissed the ambassador earlier in the week, attempted to bar them from entering. However, when they brought Glas out, cops put him in restraints and forced him to the ground.
Foreign experts and Mexico agree that it seemed like a flagrant breach of international agreements. In retaliation, Mexico severed diplomatic ties with the nation. Latin American leaders denounced Ecuador’s actions for being in breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Alejandro Dávalos, Ecuador’s deputy minister of human mobility, said delegates of the Organization of American States assembled in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday that Glas did not fulfill the requirements to be granted asylum from Mexico and could not be classified as a victim of political persecution.
However, as stated by OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, “the peaceful way toward resolution of this situation is not the use of force, the illegal incursion into a diplomatic mission, nor the detention of an asylee.” He claimed that Ecuador’s actions may not be allowed to set a precedent.