QUITO, April 8 (Reuters) – Ecuador’s foreign minister recalled the country’s ambassador to Colombia on Wednesday for consultations after comments earlier this week from Colombia’s president that Ecuador said constituted interference in Ecuadorean affairs.
The ambassador’s recall is the latest tit-for-tat in an ongoing diplomatic row between the neighboring Andean countries.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on social media on Monday that former Ecuadorean Vice President Jorge Glas, who is serving a sentence for corruption, was a political prisoner and asked Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa to release or hand him over to Colombia, citing Glas’s Colombian nationality.
In response to Petro, Noboa wrote on social media that calling Glas a political prisoner constitutes an attack on sovereignty and a violation of the principle of non-intervention.
“There’s a corrupt official in jail who must answer to Ecuador,” he said.
Glas, who served as vice president under Rafael Correa from 2013 to 2017, was convicted for illicit association in the Odebrecht corruption case, bribery related to campaign financing between 2012 and 2016, and misuse of public funds after the country’s 2016 earthquake.
“We are taking steps to express, to reiterate, Ecuador’s strong protest to Colombia regarding the terms used by President Petro and the interference in decisions made by different branches of the Ecuadorean state,” Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld told a local radio.
Ecuador, whose right-wing leader Noboa has aligned closely with Washington, has clashed frequently in recent months with Colombia, led by leftist and at times Trump foe Petro. Differences concerning border security and approaches to tackling to drug traffickers have, for example, provoked a trade spat, with both governments levying tariffs on imports from their neighbor.
(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez)
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