Ecuador grants citizenship to Julian Assange
By William Branigin, Simeon Tegel and Karla Adam January 11 at 2:24 PM
Ecuador has granted citizenship to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the South American nation’s foreign minister announced Thursday, in a bid to resolve an “unsustainable” situation at its embassy in London, where Assange sought refuge more than five years ago.
But a standoff with British authorities continued, as the Foreign Office rejected an Ecuadoran request that it grant diplomatic status to Assange, insisting instead that the Australian national “leave the embassy to face justice.”
Ecuador’s foreign minister, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, subsequently said that Assange would not leave the embassy in the absence of security guarantees. She said in a news conference Thursday in Quito, the Ecuadoran capital, that Assange was granted citizenship on Dec. 12, after having applied for it in September.
Espinosa also said that Ecuador was concerned about potential threats to Assange’s life from unspecified other nations and was looking for a “dignified” exit from the stalemate in London.
Article at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ecuador-grants-citizenship-to-julian-assange-in-bid-to-end-london-embassy-standoff/2018/01/11/55a4f232-f6ec-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_ecuador-12pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.291f329fb448
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