MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – Twenty US Defense Department employees serving in the US embassy in Ecuador have been ordered to leave the country by the end of the month, the Associated Press reported Friday.
"All the activities we have carried out have had the explicit approval of our Ecuadorean counterparts," embassy spokesman Jeffrey Weinshenker was quoted as saying.
According to Weinshenker, the US Defense Department had cooperated with Ecuador for four decades, but on April 7 the embassy received a letter ordering it to suspend military operations in the country.
Weinshenker added that last year Ecuador received $7 million from Washington to fund security needs, such as personnel training and combatting terrorism and drug and human trafficking.
Tensions between Washington and Quito rose after Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa expelled three US diplomats, including the ambassador himself, in 2011. In 2012, Correa also provided asylum to whistleblower and founder of WiliLeaks Julian Assange, who disclosed thousands of US secret diplomatic cables.
Last November, the Ecuadorian government accused the US Agency for International Development of supporting the opposition and asked it to end military operations in the country. Correa later said that the US has 50 military officers in Ecuador and he was planning on ordering them to leave the country.
