Mexico takes Ecuador to ICJ, says want it 'suspended' from UN over embassy attack

Days after Ecuador conducted a brutal police raid at the Mexican embassy in Quito, Mexico is demanding the United Nations to expel the South American country from the international body.

The tensions between the two nations intensified last week after the Ecuadorian authorities barged into the Mexican diplomatic mission to arrest Ecuador’s former Vice-President Jorge Glas. Scared of getting persecuted in Ecuador, Glas has been holed up there and seeking asylum from Mexico.

In light of this, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that his country had filed a complaint at the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands asking the UN to expel Ecuador.

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“The court, in accordance with the United Nations charter, should approve the expulsion, and there should be no veto from the UN Security Council (UNSC)," the Mexican leader averred.

Mexico demands an apology

López Obrador also maintained that the Latin American nation is demanding a public apology from Ecuador for last week’s raid. The demand for atonement also includes the demand for reparation of damages and a promise not to repeat the same mistakes.

Meanwhile, The Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, Gabriela Sommerfeld maintained that the country would continue to defend its action and insisted that an apology “is not something that is under discussion at this moment”.

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The two nations have been sparring over Glas since the former Ecuadorian VP sought refuge in the Mexican embassy in December. It is pertinent to note that Glas is a convicted criminal and fugitive.

In the past, Ecuador has argued that Glas has been targeted for crimes, not for political reasons and demanded that Mexico should not be considering providing asylum to him.

The diplomatic row that commenced following the raid

On April 5, the Ecuadorian police forcefully raided the embassy and even broke into the walls of the diplomatic building. Shortly after the attack, Roberto Canseco, Mexico’s head of consular affairs and the highest-ranking diplomat present since Ecuador expelled the ambassador earlier in the month, tried to prevent the authorities from entering the premises.

He even pushed a large cabinet in front of a door but the police restrained him and pushed him to the floor. Mexico broke off all forms of diplomatic ties with Ecuador soon after and called the attack a violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.

On Tuesday, Ecuador’s deputy minister of human mobility, Alejandro Dávalos, told representatives of the Organization of American States (OAS) gathered in Washington DC that Glas did not meet the requisites to merit receiving asylum from Mexico.

However, OAS Secretary-General, Luis Almagro, stated that “the use of force, the illegal incursion into a diplomatic mission, nor the detention of an asylee are the peaceful way toward resolution of this situation”. He made it clear that Ecuador’s actions could not be allowed to set a precedent.

With inputs from agencies.