Rush for Assange will be ‘suicide’

QUITO

A group of Ecuadorian natives take part in a demonstration to support Wikileaks founder Julian Assange asylum request, at the Independence square in Quito.

The U.K. would be committing diplomatic suicide if it tried to enter his country’s embassy in London, where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is holed up, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said yesterday. 

Correa said such a move would open up the U.K. to having its diplomatic missions around the world entered. Assange has been in the embassy since June and Ecuador has granted him asylum as he fights extradition. The U.K., however, has said it is obliged to extradite Assange to Sweden, where he faces questioning on charges of sexual assault, which he denies, and he will be arrested if he leaves the embassy, the BBC reported.

“While the United Kingdom hasn’t retracted nor apologized, the danger still exists,” Correa said in response to a question about the possibility of U.K. authorities entering the embassy. Such a course of action would be “suicide for Great Britain because then people could enter their diplomatic premises all around the world, and they wouldn’t be able to say a thing,” Correa said.
If necessary, Correa said, he is prepared to take the issue to the United Nations.