The Ecuadorian authorities have decided to grant asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said during a live interview on local television on Thursday. Meanwhile, the UK Foreign Office has made it plain that Ecuador’s decision would not affect London’s legal obligation to extradite Assange to Sweden. Earlier, British diplomats hoped to resolve the problems by means of negotiations with Ecuadorian colleagues. They said that if the talks came to a standstill, they would have to resort to the use of force. Such an open pressure infuriated the Ecuadorian authorities who at the same time signaled their readiness to continue to adhere to their principles, says Valery Korovin, head of the Center for Geopolitical Expertise in Moscow."A desire to grant asylum to Assange is a very bold manifestation of the sovereignty of a small yet proud state, Korovin says. I think that what really matters here is a precedent. That a state grants political asylum to Assange in the face of London’s threat to resort to the use of force is an example of how all those who have repeatedly upheld their sovereignty should behave." Tags: Ecuador , Julian Assange , Politics, UK, World, Wikileaks, Opinion & Analysis, Читатьдалее, Source: Voice of Russia.
