The move escalates tensions between the US and Ecuador and comes amid a fraying of ties between Washington and other Latin American capitals.
A US official told The Associated Press that Ecuadorian Ambassador Luis Gallegos was summoned to the State Department and informed of the decision by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela. The official said Gallegos was declared “persona non grata” and ordered to leave the United States as soon as possible. In addition to the expulsion, the official said high-level US-Ecuador talks set for June had been suspended.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement of the unusual US diplomatic move.
The step follows Ecuador’s expulsion this week of Heather Hodges, the US ambassador in Quito, over corruption allegations she made about senior Ecuadorian police authorities in confidential documents released by the WikiLeaks website.
The State Department has said Hodges’ expulsion was unjustified and unwarranted.
The official said the United States wants a positive relationship with Ecuador but that the decision to expel Hodges had damaged ties and would have to be taken into account going forward.
US expulsion of foreign diplomats is a severe step generally only taken in retaliation for action against US diplomats, or when a foreign diplomat is accused of abusing his or her diplomatic status in the United States.
Ecuador expelled Hodges on Tuesday because of a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks that accused a newly retired police chief of a long history of corruption and speculated that President Rafael Correa was aware of it.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said Hodges had not explained what led her to suggest in the 2009 cable that Correa knew of “supposed acts of corruption by members of the police leadership and more specifically the former commander of the institution, Jaime Hurtado Vaca.” Patino said the expulsion was not directed against the Obama administration and expressed hope that it would not affect cordial relations between the two countries.
Hodges is the second US ambassador to fall victim to WikiLeaks, which since November has released more than 6,300 State Department cables, reported in the international news media. Last month, Carlos Pascual resigned as US envoy to Mexico after disparaging comments he made in cables divulged by the website angered President Felipe Calderon.
Correa has now expelled three US diplomats from Ecuador since taking office in 2007. While a close ally of leftist Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, Correa has been far less antagonistic with the United States.
Hodges’ expulsion leaves all three nations without US ambassadors.
Bolivia expelled the US ambassador in late 2008, accusing him of inciting the opposition, while Venezuela has been without a chief US envoy since July after objecting to the candidate named by Washington.
The last time the United States took action against a foreign ambassador was in December, when the administration revoked the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, who was not in the US at the time. That came after Chavez rejected President Barack Obama’s choice for envoy to Venezuela, Larry Palmer.
Chavez accused Palmer of dishonoring the Venezuelan government by expressing concerns on several sensitive subjects, including 2008 accusations by the US Treasury Department that three members of Chavez’s inner circle helped Colombian rebels by supplying arms and aiding drug-trafficking operations.
