Colombia: Petro escalates the diplomatic crisis with Guatemala

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has not ruled out this Wednesday breaking relations with Guatemala due to the accusations of corruption that the Prosecutor’s Office of that country has launched against the head of Defense, Iván Velásquez, assuring that they will go “as far as they want to take the situation”

Petro’s statements contrast with those of the Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Álvaro Leyva, who hours before had assured that diplomatic relations were not in danger and that calls for consultations with the ambassadors of both countries were “a natural response.”

“Our Defense Minister is respected, our President is respected and we are not going to kneel national sovereignty before a corrupt action comes from whoever it comes from,” he said, thus responding to his Guatemalan counterpart, Alejandro Giammattei, who reproached Petro for his past as a guerrilla.

This Tuesday, Guatemalan prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche accused Minister Velásquez of being part of a corrupt plot woven by the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht when he was part of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.

With information from LGI