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The United States and Ecuador left behind a decade of tension with the visit of Vice President Mike Pence, who on Thursday urged Quito to take steps to "isolate" the Venezuelan government from Nicolás Maduro. Difficult years, where our people were always close but our governments were separated, "Pence said after a two-hour meeting and privately with President Lenin Moreno at the Carondelet Palace.
The President at the same time ushered in a new way of relating to both nations ", after thorny episodes during the government of Rafael Correa (2007-2017) for the expulsion of a US ambbadador United and the withdrawal from a military base from which Washington was conducting anti-drug operations.
who urged the OAS to declare illegitimate the recent re-election of Maduro until 2025, insisted in Quito on the need to restore democracy "in Venezuela.
"We respectfully urge Ecuador, all our allies in the region, to take steps to further isolate the Maduro regime," said Mr. Pence. that dialogue and mediation are the means of "finding a peaceful and democratic solution" to the crisis for which some 150,000 Venezuelans have emigrated to Ecuador, according to the president.
Nothing about Assange
The asylum that Ecuador provides since 2012, at its embbady in London, the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has not been commented publicly by Pence in despite the fact that ten opposition senators in the United States asked Wednesday to discuss this issue with Moreno. US concerns over President Moreno over Ecuador's continued support for Assange at a time when Wikileaks continues to undermine democratic processes around the world, said in a letter signed by Robert Menéndez , the highest democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
The missive pointed to WikiLeaks' interference in the US presidential elections of 2016 and 2017 in France. Assange, a refugee in the Ecuadorian Legation of London to avoid being delivered to Sweden for alleged badual crimes, is afraid to leave the embbady, to be detained and to be extradited to Sweden. The United States, for having broadcast thousands of official secrets of this country.
Pence, who was previously in Brazil, offered his help to Ecuador to deal with security threats and pledged to deliver $ 1.5 million for the fight against corruption and two million to support the attention of Venezuelan immigrants.
The agreements, Moreno said, will be used to combat drug trafficking and violence. a, particularly on the border with Colombia, hit by unusual attacks against the police and where an Ecuadorian journalistic team was kidnapped last March and killed in captivity by FARC rebel dissidents.
After a decade in which Correa refused to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), now Ecuador seeks to promote business with its main trading partner.
Moreno asks Pence to review the withdrawal of duties on Ecuadorian products such as flowers and tuna.
The country exported $ 6,057 million to the United States in 2017 (out of a total of $ 19,123 million). After meeting Moreno, Pence went to Guatemala to meet with the governors of that country, Honduras and El Salvador, of the migration crisis on the southern border of the country. United States.
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