UNASUR: UK, Ecuador Must Understand Each Other with Mutual Respect

The secretary general of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Ali Rodriguez, said that the United Kingdom and Ecuador must understand each other in a sovereign way and on the basis of mutual respect to solve the crisis caused by the Assange case.

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"As established by the most elementary international practices of diplomacy and the principle of international law," he added.

In statements to Prensa Latina, Rodriguez referred to the UK's threat to raid Ecuador's embassy in London to arrest the Australian citizen Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, and expressed Quito's rejection of that threat.

The top leader of the integration bloc added that this situation, which poses a risk for a South American nation, further consolidates regional unity.

"It is happening, it is being demonstrated and it is being proved," he said when alluding the UNASUR's support for Ecuador, contained in the Guayaquil Declaration, approved last weekend in that city.

Rodriguez noted that if the UK is interested in maintaining good relations with the UNASUR and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), it must acknowledge the practices on asylum implemented in the region in an unalterable and consecutive manner.

However, he suggested, before that, the UK must withdraw the document containing the threat and create the conditions that existed before, so that negotiation can flow in terms of mutual respects between sovereign countries.

The UNASUR would contribute to guaranteeing peace and finding a solution to this situation, he stated.

Rodriguez concluded that there are enough arguments and foundation for the UNASUR's unanimous support for Ecuador.

The right to asylum, he noted, is a common tradition that must be accepted in other regions for peaceful coexistence in the world.