Ecuador’s Foreign Minister said his country’s diplomatic relations with Colombia will not be affected by the release of a report on the raid of a FARC camp in which guerrilla leader ‘Raul Reyes’ was killed.
Minister Fander Falconi said that “in no way” would the report “hinder relations with anyone. Ecuador has flexible relations framed by a set of clearly delineated foreign policy principles”.
Colombia and Ecuador’s relationship was fractured following the Colombian military’s bombardment of the FARC camp on Ecuadorean soil on March 1, 2008, in which guerrilla leader ‘Raul Reyes’ was killed.
Diplomatic relations between the neighboring nations were only reinstated in late November with the reopening of embassies in Bogota and Quito.
The130 page report on the raid conducted by the Ecuadorean Commission for Transparency and Truth released Thursday found that “the strategic intelligence processed from the [Ecuadorean] Manta military base was fundamental in tracking and tracing Raul Reyes”. At the time of the raid on the FARC camp the Manta base was operated by the U.S. military.
Both the U.S. Embassy in Quito and the Colombian Armed Forces denied the report’s claims.