MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile recalls Venezuela envoy over TV remarks

Ambassador Claudio Huepe

Chile's ambassador to Venezuela was ordered home Wednesday because of a television interview in which he discussed what he said was a private conversation with President Michelle Bachelet about Chile's vote last year in a U.N. Security Council election.

Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley announced the return of Ambassador Claudio Huepe but did not confirm media reports the diplomat would be fired. According to transcripts of the interview, Huepe said Bachelet at first wanted to support Venezuela over Guatemala in the October election for a seat on the Security Council but later was influenced by a debate within the governing coalition. Bachelet, the envoy said, privately told him that she was inclined to support Venezuela but decided to abstain because "a series of circumstances happened," a reference to the political controversy. After a number of inconclusive votes, neither Venezuela nor Guatemala won the seat, and a compromise gave the U.N. seat to Panama. Bachelet abstained in the vote, saying Chile wanted to promote consensus in the region. Venezuela's candidacy was supported by many leftist governments, while Guatemala was strongly backed by the United States. Foxley declined to confirm that the ambassador to Venezuela would be fired, but said, "We think that what has happened is a very delicate, a very serious, grave situation." "Those are not comments for a Chilean ambassador to make," added presidential spokesman Ricardo Lagos Weber. Huepe already had been reprimanded by the government before October's election for saying he was personally in favor of supporting Venezuela's candidacy. Unlike Bachelet's Socialist Party, Huepe's Christian Democratic Party strongly opposed voting for Venezuela