Assange prepared to remain in Ecuadorean embassy in London another five years

Monday, June 17th 2013 - 19:25 UTC

Full article 37 comments

Foreign Secretary William Hague, Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño and Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire

Ecuador will continue to grant WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange asylum at its London embassy, the foreign minister said on Monday after failing to reach a solution to the case with Britain.

Ricardo Patiño said the Australian was prepared to remain in the embassy for another five years if necessary until a diplomatic solution was found, insisting he had no plans to flee.

Patiño was speaking after talks with British Foreign Secretary William Hague ahead of the anniversary on Wednesday of Assange's flight to the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is accused of sex crimes.

The two ministers “agreed to keep channels of communication open, but made no breakthrough” during the 45-minute meeting, said a statement from the British Foreign Office.

“Ministers agreed that officials should establish a working group to find a diplomatic solution to the issue of Julian Assange, but no substantive progress was made,” it said.

”The foreign secretary (Hague) was clear once again that any resolution would need to be within the laws of the United Kingdom.”

Britain has refused to grant the 41-year-old former computer hacker safe passage out of the embassy, and so he remains stuck in the modest apartment indefinitely.

Categories: Politics, International, Latin America.

Tags: Ecuador, Hugo Swire MP, Julian Assange, Ricardo Patiño, United Kingdom, WikiLeaks, William Hague.

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reality check
That modest apartment is going to get smaller and smaller as the years go by.
Jun 17th, 2013 - 07:48 pm 0
screenname
5 years??? Stuart Hall has only been sentenced to 15 months!!

I wonder why Ecuador thought they could negotiate safe passage out of the embassy. It would be interesting to kmow what they thought they could blackmail...err, 'negotiate' with.

I don't know why the government does not just boot them all out of the country, after all Correa is no friend to the UK anyway. I assume keeping an embassy running in Equador is worth the price of the police watch over here.
Jun 17th, 2013 - 07:57 pm 0
trenchtoast
See you in 2018 then Julian, enjoy yourself.
Jun 17th, 2013 - 08:03 pm 0

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