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OAS Permanent Council to Consider Convening of Foreign Ministers Meeting on Situation between Ecuador and the United Kingdom

OAS Permanent Council to Consider Convening of Foreign Ministers Meeting on Situation between Ecuador and the United Kingdom

The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) will meet tomorrow, Friday August 17 at 15:00 EDT (19:00 GMT), to consider convening a Meeting of Consultation of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the OAS Member States on August 23 at 10:00 EDT (16:00 GMT) in Washington, DC, on the situation between Ecuador and the United Kingdom surrounding the granting of diplomatic asylum to Julian Assange.

The Permanent Representative of Ecuador, María Isabel Salvador, proposed the holding of the meeting of the OAS Foreign Ministers to consider "threats by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland against the State of Ecuador and its diplomatic premises in that country,” after the South American country granted diplomatic asylum to Australian citizen Julian Assange, who has been in the embassy of Ecuador in London since June 19, 2012. Ambassador Salvador said her country received a written communication from the United Kingdom warning the government of Quito it "should be aware that there is a legal basis in the United Kingdom, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act of 1987, which would allow us to take action to arrest Mr. Assange in the existing facilities of the embassy."

Ambassador Salvador said "the government of Ecuador is obliged to reject and denounce the threats made explicitly by the British government, which become even more important today, due to the decision of my country to grant diplomatic asylum to Mr. Julian Assange.” “The written threats that the British government made to my country are inadmissible both from a political and legal standpoint, as they constitute a hostile, unfriendly act by a state with which Ecuador has had traditional relations of friendship and cooperation,” she said.

During the meeting, Member States Representatives from Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Guyana, Peru, Brazil, Chile, the United States, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada and Jamaica participated, as well as representatives of the United Kingdom and Sweden in their capacity as Permanent Observers.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

The full video of the event is available here. The reel of images is available here.

The audio of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-282/12