The Argentine Republic requested this Tuesday the retirement of the Ecuadorian ambassador in Buenos Aires, Xavier Alfonso Monge Yoder, after regretting the “incomprehensible government decision” of Ecuador for having requested the withdrawal of the Argentine ambassador in that country, Gabriel Fuks, in a derivation of the case of the architect María de los Ángeles Duarte Pesantes, former minister of the government of Rafael Correa.
“It has been decided to adopt, for our part, the same situation with respect to the Ecuadorian ambassador in Argentina. The Argentine Government has taken with surprise and deep sadness Ecuador’s decision to escalate the existing disagreement regarding the situation of Mrs. María de los Ángeles Duarte Pesantes and take it to the level of prejudice in the bilateral relationship”, The Foreign Ministry indicated tonight through a statement.
The Ministry of Foreign Relations, headed by Santiago Cafiero, stated that “beyond the differences revealed after the request for diplomatic asylum” of Duarte Pesantes “by the Argentine side”, and after the “rejection of the granting of said status and the consequent safe-conduct by the Ecuadorian authorities”, it was “public knowledge” that the former official “continued staying at the Argentine legation”.
“Even though the Ecuadorian authorities were promptly informed as soon as it could be verified, just on Monday, March 13, that the aforementioned guest had left the Embassy premises – without consulting or prior notice to any authority of the Argentine Embassy, which was recognized by official communiqués from the Ecuadorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility issued that same day-, there is no international standard that obliges the Argentine diplomatic authorities to exercise custody over Duarte Pesantes,” the Foreign Ministry remarked.
The Argentine Foreign Ministry informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility of Ecuador that the citizen María de los Ángeles Duarte Pesantes is no longer in the Argentine Embassy.
Official statement ?https://t.co/9ZZ2sMFkm7 pic.twitter.com/LvCh4khwXb
– Argentine Foreign Ministry ?? (@CancilleriaARG) March 14, 2023
In addition, the statement from the San Martín Palace included criticism of the management of Guillermo Lasso for his intervention in the diplomatic dispute surrounding Duarte Pesantes, stating that it was “the ineffectiveness of the Ecuadorian authorities” that allowed the former Minister of Transportation and Obras Públicas of Alianza País (correísmo) “has been able to circulate through Ecuador and leave that country for abroad, evading the control systems arranged around the residence of the Argentine embassy in Quito.”
“The Argentine Government will continue to act within the framework of full respect for applicable international standards and will always be willing to engage in dialogue with the Ecuadorian authorities to find mutually acceptable responses to this situation with the permanent objective of strengthening our relations with the Republic of Ecuador.”clarified the Foreign Ministry in another paragraph of the document.
The ministry insisted in any case that the “deep appreciation for the people of Ecuador will not change with this current situation.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to request the withdrawal of Ecuadorian ambassador Monge Yoder after learning that Fuks, the Argentine representative in Ecuador, had been described as “persona non grata” by the Quito authorities and that they had given him a within 72 hours to leave Ecuador, which was equivalent to expulsion.
It was at that moment that heThe Foreign Ministry responded with a mirror action that in diplomatic terms constitutes a “replica”a decision that for Argentina is justified by the treatment that Fuks received from some Quito officials and that from now on will leave the bilateral link at the level of business managers, which implies a strong escalation in the short circuit that was already tense .
Diplomatic sources that from the beginning followed the frustrated asylum request of the Ecuadorian ex-minister said that Fuks attended all the summons sent to him by the Lasso government on Tuesday and that in the case of Duarte Pontes he held three meetings with Ecuadorian officials, among They were the legal secretary general of the Presidency of that country, Juan Pablo Ortiz, who raised before him an “anti-Argentine” speech.
The saga of meetings was monopolized by what happened with the former Minister of Transport and Public Works, who has a 12-year-old Argentine son and who, after requesting asylum from Argentina -a request rejected by Ecuador, which refused to grant him safe-conduct- abandoned the Argentine embassy in Quito where she was staying for humanitarian reasons without anyone noticing.
Then he appeared on Tuesday morning at the Argentine diplomatic mission in Caracas, Venezuela. “At 11 in the morning (local time) today, Tuesday, March 14, Mrs. María de los Ángeles Duarte Pesantes was present at the headquarters of the Argentine Embassy in Caracas and was attended by Ambassador Oscar Laborde and two officials of the diplomatic headquarters”, the Ministry of Foreign Relations had consigned in a first statement.
On that note, The Foreign Ministry indicated that Duarte Pesantes “informed that he is currently in Caracas – without providing explanations on how he did it, or if he is with his son – and made inquiries about the documentation that our country could extend to him. Likewise , stated that he had no intention of traveling to Argentina in the short term“.
And he completed the statement with the information that Duarte Pesantes had been “housed together with his son, a minor and of Argentine nationality, in the Residence of the Embassy of our country in Quito since August 20, 2020.”
This Monday, after the staff of the Argentine embassy in Quito verified the absence of Duarte Pontes in the residence of the diplomatic headquarters, Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero informed his Ecuadorian counterpart Juan Carlos Holguín of the news.
The residence is guarded both in its access and in its external part by the National Police of Ecuador, the Foreign Ministry specified.
As indicated by the San Martín Palace, during the weekend of March 11 and 12, 2023, while Fuks was carrying out various diplomatic tasks, “no presence was registered in the wing of the building where Duarte Pesantes lived, far from the official residence of the Argentine representative, for which reason they proceeded to make the corresponding tours of the different dependencies, without locating his whereabouts”.
At the beginning of December of last year, Argentina had arranged to grant Duarte Pesantes diplomatic asylum in exercise of the right granted by the 1954 Convention on Diplomatic Asylum and in accordance with the American Convention on Human Rights. But Ecuador refused to give the safe-conduct.
“Following the formal response, rejecting the subsequent request to grant the corresponding safe-conduct, within the framework of full respect for the norms of international law and always with the aim of strengthening good relations with the Republic of Ecuador, efforts were made in the search for a common understanding that had been unsuccessful at the time”, recalled Palacio San Martín at the time.
