Assange Case: Ecuador Ready for Dialogue to Find Solutions

Ricardo Patiño

Foreign Minister of Ecuador, Ricardo Patiño, said on Monday Ecuador is ready to dialogue with the United Kingdom in order to solve the bilateral crisis occurred when Quito granted diplomatic asylum to WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange.

“Recourse to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is the way that we would go then,” said the diplomat to Ecuadorian channel Gama, who asked him on negotiations with international organizations to enforce granted asylum to Assange.

“We know that it takes a long time, several years at least for this body (ICJ) to make a decision, and we prefer the issue to be resolved before it takes several years,” he added. “For this reason we would insist on talking to the UK. We hope they previous and officially say that this threat is not valid because it is currently in force,” said the minister.

Ecuador insists that risk still exists, although the Foreign Minister of Great Britain, William Hague, had dismissed it. “There is no threat here to assault an embassy. We’re talking about an act of Parliament of this country, which stresses to be used (embassies) in full compliance with international law, “the minister Thursday.

“We have received that communication and have not received a recall of it,” he said Patino referring to a document sent by the embassy of the United Kingdom in which “direct threat to the government of Ecuador to take action to arrest” the Australian facilities of his legation, as Quito. (FL)