The Diplomat
The self-coup d’état perpetrated last week by the former Peruvian president Pedro Castillo generated yesterday a new clash in Congress between the main opposition party and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares.
During a parliamentary session of control to the Government in the plenary of the Lower House, the MP of the Popular Party Pablo Hispán reminded Albares that “his debut as minister was in the inauguration of Castillo” in July 2021, “before which he did not spare bows despite the insults he directed to Spain and the King”. “His entire government enthusiastically received someone who has been nothing more than a leftist coup leader,” he continued. “After a week with Peru collapsed, has he nothing to say?”, he added.
Likewise, Hispán asked for explanations from Albares in relation to his “trips, photos and flattery to Qatar”, following the corruption case uncovered in the European Parliament in relation to the payment of bribes by the Emirate -which has led to the arrest of the Greek Socialist MEP Eva Kailí and her dismissal as vice-president of the Chamber-, and also denounced the “flattery” of the second vice-president, Yolanda Díaz, and the Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, to the vice-president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, “after having been convicted of stealing more than 500 million dollars”. “Do you find it acceptable to turn Mrs. Kichner as a moral referent of your government?” she asked.
In his reply to the PP’s question, Albares stated that the PP “has nothing to say on foreign policy, which, I remind you, is the State policy par excellence, nor in international policy”. “But it is even more serious, it shows that you are slipping into populism in international policy and that you are openly embracing the hoaxes and lies of the extreme right,” he continued.
Likewise, he recalled that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a communiqué condemning Castillo’s self-coup “two hours after it took place”. “I have read Alberto Núñez Feijóo (leader of the PP) saying that ministers of the Government have supported the self-coup, but you have also said it fourteen hours after the Government wrote a communiqué denouncing the self-coup and in support of the Peruvian Constitution and democracy”, he added.
Last December 7, the Government issued a communiqué in which it “firmly condemned the rupture of the constitutional order in Peru” and welcomed “the reestablishment of democratic normality”, following Pedro Castillo’s decision to dissolve the national Congress and decree a government of exception and his subsequent arrest. Two days later, the spokesman of Unidas Podemos in the Congress of Deputies, Pablo Echenique, described Pedro Castillo’s maneuver as “reprehensible”. “Mr. Castillo stopped representing his voters and left-wing allies and we have seen it with the passage of time,” continued the purple leader, who added that the former president had been moving closer to the ultra-right and even went so far as to be photographed with the also former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro.
Qatar
On the other hand, Albares – who made no mention to the question about Argentina – also specified that the reason for his only trip to Qatar as minister was to facilitate the evacuation of Spaniards and local collaborators from Afghanistan after the takeover by the Taliban in August 2021.
In this regard, and in response to a question from EH Bildu spokesman Jon Iñarritu, the minister assured that “no Spanish MEP” is being investigated, “neither closely nor by far”, by the Police and the Belgian Prosecutor’s Office in relation to the alleged scheme of payment of bribes to members of the European Parliament by Qatar (the Qatargate). He also reported that last Sunday he discussed this matter in Brussels with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and returned to discuss it the next day during the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the EU, in which he conveyed to his European counterparts the willingness of the Spanish Government to “collaborate as much as possible”. It is a case of “extreme gravity” that the Belgian authorities must investigate to the “ultimate consequences”, he added.
