Ayuso accuses the Government of “abandoning” her in Mexico, while the Foreign Ministry asserts that she “never” requested protection

Eduardo González The President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has accused the Spanish Government of having “abandoned” her during her recent visit to Mexico, which put her “in danger” in a “deeply violent and dangerous” country. In response to these accusations, sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asserted that the Madrid leader “never” communicated “any security problems” to “the Spanish Embassy or the Ministry” and even “rejected the security offered by the Mexican Government.” In statements to COPE radio, Ayuso asserted this Tuesday that Mexico is a country mired “in drug trafficking” and “deeply violent and dangerous,” despite which, she denounced, the Spanish Government had “abandoned” her and her team and left them “to their fate in a country engulfed in violence.” “Anything could have happened to us anywhere,” Díaz Ayuso warned. According to the Madrid leader, the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, “spent the entire day insulting and stirring up trouble” and seeking “controversies” against her, which is why she was forced to cancel her trip to avoid “endangering” her team and herself, and to “find her own security” to prevent “any security problems.” Likewise, in statements to Cuatro, the President of Madrid insisted that she had to arrange her own security. “They haven't offered me anything,” she complained. “The government knows exactly what I'm carrying and what I'm not carrying when I get on a plane,” she warned. “I arranged my own security, but, of course, what I didn't imagine was that the President of Mexico would be stirring up trouble every single day from there,” she continued. “The President of Mexico has been constantly fueling an atmosphere against me that is absolutely unbecoming of a head of state against a representative of the Spanish State, which is me,” she denounced. “We, the regional presidents, are representatives of the State,” and therefore, the Spanish government should have defended her and asked Mexico to “tone down its rhetoric,” he continued. “Far from doing so, various ministers, including the Prime Minister himself, took advantage of my presence there to add fuel to the fire from here,” he added. In response to these statements, sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asserted that “at no point during her trip to Mexico did the President of the Community of Madrid communicate any security problems or concerns to the Spanish Embassy or the Ministry, nor did she wish to share her schedule.” Furthermore, they added, “her team rejected the security that the Mexican government typically offers in these cases, which was conveyed to her through the Embassy.” For his part, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declined to comment on the controversy. “Regarding the president of the Community of Madrid, I also don’t want to argue with someone who is a professional at creating problems and confrontation,” he declared during the joint press conference with the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at the Moncloa Palace.

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