The Diplomat
Peru’s ambassador to Spain, Óscar Maúrtua, resigned on Wednesday after learning of the attempted self-coup perpetrated by his country’s president, Pedro Castillo.
Maúrtua, who took up his post last June after Castillo had held the post vacant for nine months, sent a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, César Landa, informing him of his decision.
In the letter, published on social networks by the Peruvian Embassy in Madrid, Óscar Maúrtua states that “in view of the coup d’état”, he informs the Minister of Foreign Affairs of his “irrevocable resignation” as ambassador to Spain, Andorra and the World Tourism Organisation, “in accordance with my democratic convictions and respect for the rule of law”.
The hitherto ambassador is a 75-year-old veteran diplomat, whom Castillo chose to head the foreign ministry in August 2021, replacing 85-year-old sociologist and former guerrilla Héctor Béjar, who served only 19 days in a post he was forced to leave after claiming that the start of terrorism in the country was caused by the navy.
Castillo then opted to call on the experience of Maúrtua, who has a 50-year diplomatic career, but he did not stay long in the Peruvian Foreign Ministry either, having been replaced in February this year by César Landa, former president of the Constitutional Court.
Maúrtua had already been Foreign Minister under President Alejandro Toledo in 2005 and 2006, and Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic during Fernando Belaúnde’s second term in office. In addition, among other things, he has been ambassador to Ecuador, Canada, Bolivia and Thailand, and representative of the Organisation of American States (OAS) in Mexico.
Pedro Castillo asked him to take charge of the Embassy in Madrid, vacant since the departure of the previous ambassador, Claudio de la Puente, and Maúrtua, who was very fond of the former president until Wednesday, despite their ideological distances, accepted. He arrived in Madrid at the end of June and presented his Letters of Credence to the King on 24 September.
