Ecuador calls off arms exchange with US over plan to send weapons to Ukraine

Source: Reuters

Ecuador calls off arms exchange with US over plan to send weapons to Ukraine

Reuters
Fri, February 23, 2024 at 1:07 PM EST·1 min read

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador's government has canceled a plan to trade outdated Soviet weapons for new arms from the United States, President Daniel Noboa said, after learning the old weapons would have been sent to Ukraine.

Noboa, who is grappling with sharply deteriorated security and has declared 22 criminal gangs to be terrorist groups, said in January that Washington would give his country $200 million of new weaponry in exchange for "junk" arms.

"To our surprise, the United States has communicated publicly that it will take (the arms) for the armed conflict in Ukraine, in which we do not want to take part, nor do we want to triangulate weapons for it," Noboa told CNN in an interview clip shared on Thursday. "We can't go ahead with it."

The spokeswoman for the foreign ministry of Russia, which invaded Ukraine two years ago, criticized the arms exchange earlier this month.

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