Peru's interim president, Jose Jeri, defended his government's decision to break diplomatic relations with Mexico after the North American country granted asylum in its embassy to Betssy Chavez, former prime minister under leftist president Pedro Castillo (2021-2022), tried alongside him for the failed coup attempt of late 2022.

“Firm decisions,” Jeri stated on social media, sharing the message from the Peruvian Presidency announcing the Executive's decision to sever diplomatic relations with Mexico.

The announcement of the break in relations with Mexico was made at a press conference by Peru's Foreign Minister, Hugo De Zela, “in response to this unfriendly act and considering the repeated actions by the current and former presidents of that country (Claudia Sheinbaum and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, respectively) who have interfered in Peru's internal affairs.”

Both Sheinbaum and, previously, Lopez Obrador have repeatedly demanded Castillo's release, arguing that he was the one who actually suffered a coup d'etat, which they attribute to the Peruvian power groups that control Congress.

De Zela stated that the Peruvian government learned today “with surprise and deep regret that former Prime Minister Betssy Chavez, alleged co-author of the coup attempt by former President Pedro Castillo,” is in the Mexican embassy.

“I deeply regret that the Mexican government persists in its misguided and unacceptable position, which has reached the point of forcing us to break diplomatic relations with a country with which, until these events, we had a fraternal relationship and shared many commonalities,” he emphasized.

Peru awaits formal communication from Mexico

The Foreign Minister clarified that the severing of diplomatic relations “does not mean” that “consular relations” with Mexico have been severed.The official also said that what “needs to happen now is to receive formal communication from the Mexican government to begin the process” of Chavez's eventual asylum, something that has not yet occurred, he specified. Betssy Chavez is accused, along with Castillo, of rebellion in the trial for the failed coup attempt on December 7, 2022, by then-President Pedro Castillo, under whom she served as Prime Minister. The then-President of the Council of Ministers was behind the camera while Castillo delivered a message to the nation ordering the closure of Congress and the intervention of the Judiciary to govern temporarily by decree, fearing a vote of no confidence in Congress after evidence of alleged corruption in his administration, which directly implicated him, was revealed. The Constitutional Court (TC) ordered her immediate release in early September, determining that she had been the victim of arbitrary detention when the Prosecutor's Office did not He requested an extension of his pretrial detention, in which he had been held since June 2023.