Alberto Fernández and Guillermo Lasso will meet next Friday and Saturday within the framework of the
Ibero-American summit to be held in the Dominican Republic.
But far from appeasing, the escalation into which the two governments fell due to the escape to Venezuela of María Duarte Pesantes - a former Rafael Correa official convicted of corruption in Ecuador who was a "guest" at the Argentine embassy - heated up again .
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Holguín, who on Tuesday expelled Ambassador Gabriel Fuks from that country by declaring him persona non grata and giving him three days to leave, has just made strong accusations against him.
Specifically, he insinuated that he
"liberated" the area from the police so that Duarte Pesantes could escape
last weekend from the Argentine embassy.
"In the worst case, there was complicity," he said.
On the other hand, senior sources of the Argentine government - who reject what Holguin has been saying, while Lasso remains silent - confirmed to
Clarín
that there was a telephone conversation between Alberto Fernández and Holguín after the news of the escape was known.
The headquarters of the Argentine Embassy in Ecuador.
According to the Argentine government, it was on March 5, President Alberto Fernández spoke with Juan Carlos Holguín, the foreign minister of Ecuador.
There he would have tried to appease the anger of the Ecuadorians.
But in Ecuador they maintain that in that dialogue the Argentine President would have told him that they were evaluating obtaining asylum for Duarte Pesantes.
In the Casa Rosada they deny that version.
In Ecuador the case grows.
In addition to Holguín, the Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, also testified before Congress.
He maintained that on March 3, before the escape, the counselor minister of the Argentine Embassy in Quito, Adrián Biotti, asked the police surrounding her as a security measure to move away from the area.
The argument used by the Argentine is that it was a presence that was "uncomfortable" for them. Always following Zapata's testimony, they were also asked to
stop registering the cars that enter and leave the Embassy, whether or not they are diplomatic .
A view of the Argentine Embassy in Ecuador.
There is a security camera there.
Gabriel Fuks said they weren't.
One of the lines of investigation is that the woman left hidden in a diplomatic car and they confirmed, as
Clarín
reported , that on Friday there was a barbecue in the Argentine residence to which vehicles with plates that are diplomatic and cannot be violated entered and left. other individuals.
Following the testimony, the Ecuadorian Minister of the Interior contacted the Police to confirm the transfer of the patrol, at least one block from the entrance of the embassy, "to avoid inconveniences with the diplomats", because this would harm the relationship with Argentina.
Holguín, like his deputy minister, Luis Vayas,
accused Fuks of strong "inconsistencies" and an "arrogant" attitude
towards the story of the escape, about which he still claims to know nothing.
They affirm, for example, that first he said that he did not deliver the security cameras because they were not there and later that they were there but in reality they did not work.
If it were true, it would be serious since these cameras fulfill a security role in an Embassy.
In addition, Fuks did not want to hand over the records of entries and exits from the headquarters.
Ecuadorians also claimed contradictions about Duarte Pesantes' visits.
In the midst of suspicions from the diplomatic sphere in which they affirm that there was an arming of Cuban intelligence with Venezuelan complicity and correista in the escape of the woman, Holguín
targeted the Argentine ambassador in Caracas,
who received Duarte after his escape.
He said that
Oscar Laborde
is director of the Institute for Latin American Studies (IDEAL), "refuge for various correistas exiled in Mexico."
In Buenos Aires, meanwhile, they continue to deny any complicity.
"We are professionals.
We continue to regret how they acted, they did not provide evidence to support the action they took.
Just anecdotes.
Relations between countries are not built with versions or anecdotes."
The opposition of Together for Change requested the interpellation of Minister Santiago Cafiero before Congress for this scandal.