Mexico on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Ecuador at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the storming of its embassy in Quito, saying it wanted the South American country “suspended” from the UN.
Mexico’s complaint asks that Ecuador be suspended from the UN unless it issues a public apology “recognizing the violations of the fundamental principles and norms of international law,” Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Barcena said.
The goal was to “guarantee the reparation of the moral damage inflicted on the Mexican state and its nationals,” she told a press conference.
Photo: EPA/EFE
Ecuadoran security forces stormed the embassy on Friday last week to arrest former Ecuadoran vice president Jorge Glas, who is wanted on corruption charges and had been granted asylum by Mexico.
The rare incursion on diplomatic territory sparked an international outcry, and led Mexico to break ties with Ecuador, pulling its diplomats out of the country.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the goal of the suit was “that this doesn’t repeat itself in any other country in the world, that international law is guaranteed.”
Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa has defended the embassy raid as necessary to detain Glas because he posed a flight risk, saying he was willing to “resolve any difference” with Mexico.
The Hague-based ICJ — set up after World War II to rule on disputes between countries — confirmed late on Thursday it had received the application.
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said suspending a country from the UN is “an issue for member states to decide.”
“We do very much hope that the tensions between Ecuador and Mexico are dealt with through dialogue,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.
While a proper hearing into the matter may take several years, Mexico has also asked international judges to hand down “provisional measures” — a set of emergency orders — to protect its diplomatic officials.
“The Mexican Embassy in Ecuador, along with its property and archives, faces the risk of not being protected or further being violated again,” Mexico said in its application.
Several Latin American states, Spain, the EU, the US and Guterres have condemned the embassy intrusion as a breach of the 1961 Vienna Convention governing diplomatic relations.
Latin American leaders is hold a virtual conference on Tuesday next week to discuss the raid, Honduran President Xiomara Castro said.
They will consider a proposal for the “firm condemnation” of Ecuador’s actions and possible sanctions, said Castro, the current president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
A German Ministry of Foreign Affairs source confirmed that Glas also has German citizenship.
“We are following Mr Glas’ case very closely and are trying to seek direct contact with him through the Ecuadoran authorities,” the source said.
Glas, who had served time on corruption charges, was the subject of a fresh arrest warrant for allegedly diverting funds intended for reconstruction efforts after a devastating earthquake in 2016.
After his capture, Glas, 54, was taken to a maximum security jail in Ecuador’s port city of Guayaquil — notorious for violent riots and drug-related gang violence.
He was later taken to a hospital, with officials saying it was due to his refusal to eat, but he returned to prison on Tuesday.
His friend and former boss, Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s president from 2007 to 2017, wrote on X on Wednesday that Glas was “on a hunger strike” and alleged he had made “a suicide attempt.”
Correa lives in exile in Belgium to avoid serving an eight-year corruption sentence in Ecuador and frequently posts on social media his views of his native country’s affairs.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver