The Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelensky, asked to speak with his Uruguayan counterpart, Luis Lacalle Pou, through a letter sent to the embassy of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay in Argentina.
That channel was used because there is no Ukrainian embassy on Uruguayan soil, and the diplomatic headquarters in Buenos Aires also corresponds to Montevideo.
According to information provided by the newspaper The ObserverAmbassador Carlos Enciso informed the Presidency of the Republic about this request on Thursday. Lacalle has not responded because he did not have time to analyze it, since he arrived in Montevideo last night after having participated with the Foreign Minister, Francisco Bustillo, and the Minister of Economy, Azucena Arbeleche, in the Mercosur meeting and touring an exhibition of the Association Country of Paraguay.
Mercosur turns its back on Zelensky
The request is made public after Mercosur denied Zelensky offer a message at the summit held between Wednesday and Thursday in the Paraguayan capital Asunción.
Only Uruguay and Paraguay voted in favor, but there was a negative vote from Brazil or Argentina, without revealing until now which of the two countries it was.
Uruguay has condemned what it understands to be an invasion of Russia in Ukrainian territory, alluding to the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin that has been condemned internationally.
“Uruguay has expressed its clear condemnation of the violation of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine by the military forces of the Russian Federation, considering it a violation of international law and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, emphasized also the need for the conflict to be resolved by peaceful means” reads a statement from the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry dated February 26, after the entry of Russian troops onto Ukrainian soil.