Diplomatic Briefing
Your exclusive news aggregator handpicked daily!Archive for Central America
Newsline: Taiwan told to vacate embassy in Honduras in 30 days
Taiwan must vacate its embassy in Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa in 30 days, a senior Honduran official said on Monday, after President Xiomara Castro severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China. Deputy Foreign Minister Antonio Garcia issued the order on local television on Monday, following the government’s announcement over the weekend that it had opened formal diplomatic relations with Beijing while simultaneously ending its decades-long relationship with Taiwan. (https://neuters.de/world/taiwan-told-vacate-embassy-honduras-after-ties-severed-2023-03-27/) Taipei’s embassy in the leafy Palmira neighborhood was for years one of the Central American capital’s most prominent foreign outposts, as well as the country’s second-biggest embassy after the U.S. embassy. In a statement late on Saturday, the Honduran foreign ministry said it recognized the People’s Republic of China, China’s formal name, as the only legitimate government that represents all of China and that Taiwan is an “inseparable part of Chinese territory.” The move left Taiwan with only 13 formal allies, mostly poor and developing countries in Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
Newsline: Honduras top diplomat travels to China
The Honduran foreign minister is travelling to China to “promote” the establishment of diplomatic ties, an official said, signalling the end is most likely near for the country’s decades-long relations with Taiwan. Honduran President Xiomara Castro tweeted last week her government would seek to open relations with China. “Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina on instructions from President Xiomara Castro travelled to China on Wednesday to promote efforts for the establishment of diplomatic relations,” presidential press secretary Ivis Alvarado said. China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it had summoned in the Honduran ambassador to express its “strong dissatisfaction” at the trip which “seriously harmed the feelings of our government and people”. A source with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters Reina and his delegation left for Beijing from Panama, accompanied by Chinese officials. (https://neuters.de/world/taiwan-says-chinas-involvement-honduras-is-very-obvious-2023-03-23/) The source declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation. A senior Taipei-based diplomatic source told Reuters that Reina going to China meant an announcement on forging relations was probably near.
Newsline: Vatican closes embassy in Nicaragua
The Vatican said Saturday it had closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the country’s government proposed suspending diplomatic relations, the latest episode in a yearslong crackdown on the Catholic Church by the administration of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. The Vatican’s representative to Managua, Monsignor Marcel Diouf, also left the country Friday, bound for Costa Rica, a Vatican official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. (https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/politics/article/vatican-closes-embassy-in-nicaragua-after-17847042.php) The Vatican action came a week after the Nicaraguan government proposed suspending relations with the Holy See, and a year after Nicaragua forced the papal ambassador at the time to leave.
Newsline: Honduras eyes diplomatic relations with China
Honduran President Xiomara Castro said on Tuesday she had asked the country’s foreign minister to open official relations with China, pressuring Taiwan ahead of a sensitive visit by President Tsai Ing-wen to the United States and Central America. (https://neuters.de/world/americas/honduras-president-says-govt-seek-official-relations-with-china-2023-03-14/) China does not allow countries with which it has diplomatic relations to maintain official ties with Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory with no right to state-to-state ties, a position Taiwan strongly disputes. Castro had floated the idea of starting relations with China and cutting ties with Taiwan during her electoral campaign, but said in January 2022 she hoped to maintain ties with Taiwan. If the Central American country does end relations with Taiwan, it will leave the island with only 13 diplomatic allies.
Newsline: Nicaragua closes embassy to Vatican and Vatican embassy in Managua
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has ordered the closure of the Vatican Embassy in Managua and that of the Nicaraguan Embassy to the Vatican in Rome, a senior Vatican source said on Sunday. (https://neuters.de/world/americas/nicaragua-closes-vatican-embassy-managua-nicaraguan-embassy-vatican-source-2023-03-12/) Nicaragua signalled that the move, which came a few days after Pope Francis compared the Nicaraguan government to a dictatorship, was “a suspension” of diplomatic relations. The Vatican source said that while the closures do not automatically mean a total break of relations between Managua and the Holy See, they are serious steps towards that possibility. Bishop Rolando Alvarez, a vocal critic of Ortega, was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison in Nicaragua last month on charges that included treason, undermining national integrity and spreading false news. Alvazez was convicted after he refused to leave the country along with 200 political prisoners released by Ortega’s government and sent to the United States. Alvarez refused to board the plane and was stripped of his citizenship. In an interview published last week with Latin American online news outlet Infobae ahead of Monday’s 10th anniversary of his pontificate, the pope pointed to Alvarez’s imprisonment and likened what was happening in Nicaragua to the “1917 Communist dictatorship or that of Hitler in 1935”. Staff in both embassies had been down to barebones for years with only a chargé d’affaires for the Vatican in Managua and almost no one for Nicaragua in Rome.
Newsline: Mexico’s top diplomat lashes out at U.S. interventionism
Mexico’s top diplomat on Friday criticized comments by former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who had called for increased U.S. involvement in Mexico to tackle drug cartels, saying Mexico “will never allow its sovereignty to be violated.” Following an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal by Barr last week, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard penned his own response in the newspaper, stressing joint cooperation over U.S. military involvement in Mexico. Barr’s opinion piece compared Mexico’s “narco-terrorist” cartels to the jihadist Islamic State and backed a Republican proposal to give the U.S. president the power to send the military to fight against the cartels. “The voracious demand for drugs in the U.S., along with the widespread availability of military-style weapons there, largely explains the cartels’ power to wreak havoc,” Ebrard shot back. (https://neuters.de/world/americas/mexicos-top-diplomat-stresses-cooperation-with-us-versus-intervention-2023-03-11/) In recent days, calls for U.S. intervention in Mexico have ramped up after two Americans were killed and two others kidnapped in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas, presumably by a drug cartel.
Newsline: Cuba’s senior diplomat blasts U.S. for ignoring evidence on ‘Havana Syndrome’
Cuba blasted the United States for taking too long to accept evidence that the ailment “Havana Syndrome” was not likely caused by a foreign enemy, saying Washington ignored the science as a pretext for cutting off relations with the Communist-run island. A globe-spanning U.S. intelligence investigation declassified on Wednesday concluded it was “very unlikely” a foreign adversary was responsible for the mysterious sickness, first identified in the Cuban capital of Havana but which has afflicted U.S. diplomats and spies worldwide. read more “This conclusion … confirms what we already knew,” Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio told Reuters in an interview in Havana late on Thursday. “The unfortunate thing is, the U.S. government leveraged (Havana Syndrome) to derail bilateral relations … and discredit Cuba.” (https://neuters.de/world/americas/cuba-blasts-us-years-disregarding-evidence-havana-syndrome-2023-03-03/) Cuba has for years labeled as “science fiction” the idea that ´Havana Syndrome´ resulted from an attack by a foreign agent, and its top scientists in 2021 found no evidence of such allegations. The U.S. State Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment on de Cossio’s statements. U.S. officials have previously said the science was inconclusive and ongoing and that the government had opted to err on the side of caution in determining its policies toward Cuba.
Newsline: Costa Rica’s foreign ministry says China apologizes for balloon ‘incident’
China apologized to Costa Rica for a balloon that flew over its territory, the Central American country’s government said on Monday. According to a brief statement from Costa Rica’s foreign ministry, the Chinese government recognized that one of its balloons flew over Costa Rica, and China’s embassy in San Jose “apologized for the incident,” while insisting the balloon was focused on scientific research, mainly weather studies. Costa Rican officials were told by Chinese officials the balloon flight path deviated from its original plan and it had a limited ability to correct the error, according to the statement. (https://neuters.de/world/americas/costa-rica-says-china-apologizes-balloon-incident-over-its-airspace-2023-02-07/) A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters at a news conference in Beijing on Monday that the balloon spotted in Latin America was used for civilian purposes. A U.S. military jet shot down a similar balloon just off its Atlantic coast on Saturday.
Newsline: US embassy in Cuba resumes visa and consular services
The United States Embassy in Cuba is restarting visa and consular services Wednesday. The Embassy confirmed it will begin processing immigrant visas, with a priority placed on permits to reunite Cubans with family in the U.S., and others like the diversity visa lottery. They are anticipated to give out at least 20,000 visas a year, though it’s just a drop in the bucket of the migratory tide, which is fueled by intensifying economic and political crises on the island. (https://www.wifr.com/2023/01/04/us-reopening-visa-consular-services-embassy-cuba/) The resumption comes amid the greatest migratory flight from Cuba in decades, which has placed pressure on the Biden administration to open more legal pathways to Cubans and start a dialogue with the Cuban government, despite a historically tense relationship.
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