Monday, August 27, 2012

UPI: London hopes talks on Assange will restart

LONDON, Aug. 27 (UPI) - Britain says it hopes talks will soon resume to end a political crisis with Quito over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's presence in Ecuador's London Embassy.

Britain sent a letter to the Ecuadorean Embassy aimed at "calming things down," the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said Sunday.

The Friday letter came nine days after Britain threatened to use an obscure 1987 law to revoke the embassy's diplomatic protection and barge into the building to get Assange if Ecuador did not hand him over, Ecuadorean Foreign Affairs Minister Ricardo Patino said.

Ecuador condemned the threat at the time as a "complete intimidation."

"We are not a British colony," Patino told reporters Aug. 15.

Britain said it never made any threats, the BBC reported Sunday.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa responded to the Foreign Office letter, saying, "We consider this unfortunate incident over, after a grave diplomatic error by the British in which they said they would enter our embassy."

Correa told the British newspaper The Sunday Times Prime Minister David Cameron "must be very angry" at British Foreign Secretary William Hague "because, besides the rudeness and the discourtesy - the intolerable threat this was - it was a huge diplomatic blunder."...


http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/08/27/London-hopes-talks-on-Assange-will-restart/UPI-79051346050800/
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Victor Cuvo, Attorney at Law
770.582.9904
(sent from new iPad)

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