QUITO, April 8 - Ecuador’s foreign minister announced on Wednesday that the country’s ambassador to Colombia has been recalled for consultations following remarks by Colombian President Gustavo Petro that Quito deemed an unacceptable intervention in its internal affairs.
Petro, via social media earlier in the week, described former Ecuadorean Vice President Jorge Glas as a political prisoner and asked Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa either to release Glas or hand him over to Colombia, referencing Glas’s Colombian nationality. In direct response on social media, Noboa said that labeling Glas a political prisoner amounted to an attack on Ecuador’s sovereignty and violated the principle of non-intervention.
"There’s a corrupt official in jail who must answer to Ecuador," Noboa wrote.
Glas served as vice president under Rafael Correa from 2013 to 2017. He has been convicted on multiple charges: illicit association in the Odebrecht corruption case, bribery connected to campaign financing between 2012 and 2016, and misuse of public funds related to the aftermath of the country’s 2016 earthquake.
Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld told a local radio station that Quito would take formal steps to convey its strong protest to Colombia. "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," she said.
The move to recall the ambassador represents the latest escalation in a broader diplomatic rift between the two Andean neighbors. The governments have been at odds in recent months over issues that include border security and differing strategies to confront drug traffickers. Those disagreements have spilled over into trade: both capitals have imposed tariffs on imports from the other as part of an ongoing economic dispute.
Quito’s leader, Daniel Noboa, is identified with a right-wing posture and has aligned closely with Washington, while Colombia’s Petro leads a leftist government. The current series of actions - public accusations, reciprocal protests and diplomatic withdrawals - underscores continuing bilateral friction, with political statements and trade measures forming part of the tension.
The immediate development is the ambassador’s recall for consultations and Ecuador’s notification that it will register a formal protest over what it describes as interference in sovereign decisions.