Argentina’s new foreign policy begins to take effect even before Javier Milei takes office as president. Nicaragua has announced that it is withdrawing “with immediate effect” its ambassador in Buenos Aires.
“In the face of repeated statements and expressions from the new rulers, the Government has proceeded to withdraw its ambassador, fellow writer and communicator, Carlos Midence,” wrote the Nicaraguan Foreign Minister, Denis Moncada, in a letter published this Monday. The reaction from Managua comes after the right-wing ultraliberal Milei decided not to invite Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran to the presidential inauguration this coming Sunday.
Although Milei assured during the electoral campaign that brought him to the Casa Rosada that he was not going to maintain diplomatic relations with “socialist and communist” governments, such as those of Brazil and China, the truth is that the future Foreign Minister, Diana Mondino, has personally invited Presidents Lula da Silva and Xi Jinping to the ceremony.
The situation is different with Managua, Caracas, Havana and Tehran, four countries that do not influence Argentine exports at the fundamental level that Brazil and China do, but which Milei also considers dictatorships.
In the case of Iran, there is the fact that the Argentine justice system considers it proven that its government organized the attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the AMIA Jewish mutual fund in 1994, in which 107 people died.
“Although Mondino said that his intention is to maintain the position of ambassador in those three capitals to ‘help’ internal groups fighting for democracy – this is different in the case of Iran, where the link is followed at the level of chargé d’affaires. – It is unknown if the respective Latin American regimes are going to approve a style agreement for a head of embassy requested by Milei,” the Argentine newspaper Clarín reported this Monday.
