Luis Ayllón
The Government has decided to relieve Ángel Martín Peccis, Spain’s current ambassador to Cuba, of his post and to appoint Javier Hergueta, who is currently in charge of the Embassy in Turkey, as The Diplomat has learned from reliable sources.
The Spanish authorities have asked the Cuban authorities for their approval and when they grant it, the Government will proceed to change the Head of Mission in Havana, where Martín Peccis has been for just over three years, after his appointment in November 2020, which came as a surprise in diplomatic circles, both because he is not a member of the Diplomatic Career, and because he is a little-known person. Martín Peccis, who has good contacts in the PSOE, had worked for fifteen years for the Organisation of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) in Colombia, where he participated in the peace negotiations with the FARC.
Now, the Government, which has been widely criticised in recent months for appointing former ministers and other politicians as ambassadors, has opted to return to having a diplomat at the head of the Embassy in Cuba, and has chosen Javier Hergueta.
Hergueta has a long career, which began in 1986, and he was already posted in Havana as counsellor for cultural affairs between 2006 and 2009. In Ibero-America, he was also stationed in Lima and held the second post in Panama.
Since July 2020, Javier Hergueta has been ambassador to Turkey, after having been ambassador to Yemen, between 2010 and 2012, and to the Democratic Republic of Congo, between 2014 and 2017, and after having been in charge of Casa Mediterráneo from 2017 until his appointment to Ankara.
In addition, the future ambassador to Cuba has been posted to Malta, Hungary, Croatia, Belgrade and the permanent representation to the EU.
Cristina Latorre, to Turkey
The post to be vacated by Javier Hergueta in Turkey will be filled by Cristina Latorre, Spain’s current ambassador to Sweden, according to sources consulted by The Diplomat.
Cristina Latorre, a diplomat since 1991, was under-secretary of the Ministry of Justice under Dolores Delgado, and was responsible for piloting the process of exhuming the mortal remains of Francisco Franco. In her position, she was in charge of the process of transferring the remains from his tomb in the Valley of the Fallen to the family vault in the cemetery of Mingorrubio-El Pardo.
After returning to the diplomatic career, in September 2020 she was appointed ambassador to Stockholm.
In her first years as a diplomat, she was posted at the Diplomatic Information Office and at the Embassies in Tanzania, Guatemala and Lisbon. After that, between 2004 and 2006, she was Director of the Office of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education; and between 2006 and 2008, Director General of International Legal Cooperation in the Ministry of Justice.
In 2008, during the second government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, she made the leap to Moncloa, called by the then Secretary General of the Presidency of the Government, also a diplomat, Bernardino León, with whom she was Deputy Secretary General. In 2011 she replaced him in that post and, as secretary general, at the end of the year she was in charge of organising the transition between the terms of Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy, who had just won the elections. In 2012, she was posted to Paris as Spain’s deputy permanent delegate to the OECD, and in 2017, as ‘number two’ at the Embassy in Belgrade.
