Ecuador recalls ambassador to Colombia after Petro comments on jailed ex-vice president

Ecuador has recalled its ambassador to Colombia for consultations, escalating a diplomatic row after Colombian President Gustavo Petro called a jailed former Ecuadorean vice president a political prisoner and urged his release or handover.

The move, announced Wednesday by Ecuador’s foreign minister, followed Petro’s social media post on Monday describing former Vice President Jorge Glas as a political prisoner and asking President Daniel Noboa to release him or transfer him to Colombia, citing Glas’s Colombian nationality.

Noboa responded on social media that labeling Glas a political prisoner amounted to an attack on Ecuador’s sovereignty and a violation of the principle of non-intervention. “There’s a corrupt official in jail who must answer to Ecuador,” he said.

Glas, who served as vice president under Rafael Correa from 2013 to 2017, is serving sentences tied to multiple convictions: illicit association in the Odebrecht corruption case, bribery related to campaign financing between 2012 and 2016, and misuse of public funds after the country’s 2016 earthquake.

“We are taking steps to express, to reiterate, Ecuador’s strong protest to Colombia regarding the terms used by President Petro and the interference in decisions made by different branches of the Ecuadorean state,” Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld told a local radio station.

The ambassador’s recall marks the latest tit-for-tat between the neighbors, whose relations have grown tense in recent months. Ecuador, led by President Noboa, has aligned closely with Washington, while differences over border security and approaches to combating drug traffickers have already sparked a trade spat, with both governments imposing tariffs on each other’s imports.

Ecuador’s consultations and planned diplomatic protest underscore the strain, as Quito and Bogotá navigate disagreements that have spilled from security policy into trade and now diplomatic protocol.