Ecuador: Britain Retracts Threats to Attack Embassy

British Foreign Office Says Committed to Dialogue

Ecuador President Rafael Correa is reporting that Britain has formally withdrawn its threat to attack the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, saying that his government “consider this unfortunate incident over.”

Britain’s Foreign Office had threatened to invade the embassy earlier this month over the granting of asylum for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Though the Vienna Convention of 1961 forbids nations from attacking one another’s embassies, British law claims the right to do so.

The Ecuadorean government says they have received an additional communication from the Foreign Office over the weekend, saying that there is “no threat to enter the embassy.” Ecaudor had previously called an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) to respond to the threat.

The British Foreign Office is now denying that the threat was ever made in the first place, and says that its second letter was meant to “calm things down.” They say that they are now committed to dialogue.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.