Ecuador reiterates its willingness to dialogue with Mexico

Sommerfeld, during an interview with EFE, insisted on the call for dialogue with Mexico after the recent electoral victory of Claudia Sheinbaum, who will succeed Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the Presidency.

The Mexican president has said publicly that he has not sought a rapprochement with Ecuador until now. His Government considers that  Ecuador violated the sovereignty of its embassy to capture Glas, who was under a judicial arrest warrant.

«We always see the dialogue in a positive way, with good eyes and openness, whether with the outgoing president or the incoming president. “Ecuador is always open to dialogue,” said Sommerfeld, who pointed out that the breaking of diplomatic relations was a unilateral act by Mexico.

Likewise, he assured that the initiative for Switzerland to act as an intermediary came from Mexico, a proposal that Ecuador has accepted. Although Sommerfeld avoided describing it as a mediator and called it “a channel of diplomatic communication.”

«This can be resolved through dialogue. If you want, with other parties as well, but through dialogue, as several friendly countries have asked us,” Sommerfeld emphasized , highlighting that trade relations are maintained.

Optimists in The Hague

However, he mentioned that, in its public statements, the  Mexican Government  has said so far that “they are not going to open this dialogue, but rather that everything will be resolved in the  Court of The Hague .”

“Ecuador has respected that position,” said Sommerfeld. He highlighted that both Mexico and Ecuador have countersued each other in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) with mutual accusations of having transgressed international statutes.

On the one hand, Mexico has accused Ecuador of having broken the inviolability of diplomatic headquarters. While Ecuador considers that Mexico was the first to transgress international law by meddling in internal affairs and abusing diplomatic immunity.

And he also accuses him of contravening the rules of diplomatic asylum, which prevent it from being granted to those prosecuted for common crimes or convicted by ordinary courts.

In the case of Glas, who declares himself a politically persecuted person, he has two convictions for corruption and is currently being prosecuted for alleged embezzlement.

Since his arrest, Glas has been held in the maximum-security prison, La Roca, in Guayaquil. Mexico has requested that he be released and handed over to comply with the asylum granted.

«We are optimistic that in any forum, be it a multilateral organization, the Court of The Hague or bilateral meetings, the two countries will be heard and there will be justice and balance involved. Each one has their truth and their position. It is important that there is justice and equity,” said Sommerfeld.

«Extraordinary response» towards Mexico

The chancellor stated that the crisis with Mexico did not begin with the assault on the Embassy, ​​but “long before, with several non-compliance since December by the Embassy and the president of Mexico himself.”

Among those “non-compliances” he mentioned the consideration of Glas as a “guest” of the Embassy and the statements by López Obrador in which he related the murder of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio with the final triumph of businessman Daniel Noboa over Luisa González, the Correismo candidate.

“Was it correct (to make) those statements?” asked Sommerfeld, who recalled that the Noboa Government congratulated Sheinbaum  on his victory, in a statement without question.

“We were already coming from, let’s say, a lack of willingness to cooperate on the part of Mexico by refusing all our requests (to hand over Glas), but it was not expected that the legitimacy of the Government would be questioned and other types of insinuations would be made on an issue. very difficult and hard, tragic and sad, which left Ecuadorians in mourning in the last elections,” he added.

“It is a series of events that are putting pressure on Ecuador to make decisions that had never been made,” said Sommerfeld, for whom the invasion of the embassy was an “extraordinary response to several difficult actions that put the country in greater instability and unsafety”.

Thus, Sommerfeld highlighted the recent judicial ruling of an Ecuadorian court that described Glas ‘s detention as legal , arguing that it occurred in the midst of a state of exception against organized crime where the right to the inviolability of the home was suspended. EFE