MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico will not break diplomatic ties with Ecuador, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday, a day after Ecuador ordered Mexico’s ambassador to leave the South American nation.
Mexico will not do the same for Ecuador’s ambassador to Mexico, Lopez Obrador said in a press conference.
Ambassador Raquel Serur Smeke’s departure from Ecuador comes after Lopez Obrador weighed in on Ecuador’s bloody elections last year, which saw a presidential candidate assassinated.
On Wednesday, the Mexican president compared the assassination last year of Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio with recent violence during Mexico’s current election season, with several local candidates gunned down.
Lopez Obrador doubled down on Friday, repeating the comparison and blaming media that he claimed were corrupt across Latin America.
However, he shrugged off the ambassador’s expulsion.
“For there to be a fight, there need to be two parties involved,” he said.
(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez and Kylie Madry; Editing by David Gregorio)
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