The United States on Thursday ordered the expulsion of Ecuador’s ambassador to Washington in a tit-for-tat move after the US envoy to Quito was told to leave over a leaked diplomatic cable.
Ecuador on Tuesday ordered US Ambassador Heather Hodges out of the country in a row over a leaked diplomatic cable which quoted her as saying President Rafael Correa knowingly appointed a corrupt chief of police.
The row comes nearly a year after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Ecuador’s leftist Correa in Quito as part of efforts to drive a wedge between him and Venezuela’s anti-American firebrand Hugo Chavez.