MEXICO CITY — Ecuadorian police forced their way into Mexico’s embassy in Quito late Friday and pulled out a former vice president who had sought asylum there, sparking a diplomatic crisis in a region becoming increasingly polarized between left and right.
The Mexican government had granted political asylum on Friday afternoon to Jorge Glas, the former Ecuadorian vice president. Glas has been convicted twice for corruption. He claimed he was being persecuted by the country’s attorney general.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a longtime leftist, had been an ally of Ecuador’s former president, Rafael Correa, who left office in 2017. López Obrador prompted an uproar this week by saying that the new president, conservative Daniel Noboa, won the election in October because “they created this climate of fear.” Ecuador was shocked during the campaign when gunmen assassinated a well-known candidate, anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio, a crime blamed on drug cartels.
Ecuador promptly declared the Mexican ambassador persona non grata after López Obrador’s remarks.
The dispute escalated sharply Friday evening. López Obrador said Ecuadorian police entered the Mexican Embassy in Quito “by force” to extract the former vice president. Ecuadorian authorities confirmed Glas had been detained.
“No delinquent can be considered to be politically persecuted,” Ecuador’s government said in a statement. It said Mexico had “abused the immunity and privileges” its embassy enjoyed.
Mexico responded Friday night by breaking diplomatic relations with Ecuador.
“This is a flagrant violation of international law and of Mexico’s sovereignty,” López Obrador tweeted. He said he had ordered his foreign minister to “immediately declare the suspension of relations with the Ecuadorian government” because of the “authoritarian act.”
Ecuador has been fighting a surge in violence attributed to drug traffickers battling over booming traffic in cocaine headed from Colombia to Europe and South America.
López Obrador has largely maintained a pragmatic relationship with the United States, his country’s No. 1 trading partner. But he has been feuding with a number of conservative governments in Latin America. The governments of Peru and Bolivia have withdrawn their ambassadors because of critical comments by the Mexican leader.