Ecuador In Diplomatic Storm After Raid At Mexican Embassy

Quito, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Apr, 2024) Ecuador was lambasted across Latin America on Saturday after security forces stormed the Mexican embassy in Quito to arrest graft-accused former vice president Jorge Glas, who had been granted political asylum there.

Special forces agents surrounded the embassy with a battering ram, and at least one scaled the walls, in an almost unheard-of raid on diplomatic premises that are considered inviolable sovereign territory.

The incident Friday night prompted Mexico to quickly sever diplomatic ties with Ecuador.

"This is a flagrant violation of international law and the sovereignty of Mexico," President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wrote on X.

Nicaragua followed suit and searing rebukes poured in from governments across the political spectrum, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela.

Lopez Obrador said authorities "forcibly entered" the building to arrest Glas, who is wanted on corruption charges and had been at the embassy since December before being granted asylum on Friday.

He said he would file a complaint against Ecuador at the International Court of Justice.

The Vienna Convention, a treaty governing international relations, states that a country cannot intrude upon an embassy on its territory.