Nicaragua recalls ambassador from Argentina due to Milei criticism

Nicaragua's government has announced it is recalling its ambassador to Argentina, Carlos Midence, due to “repeated” critical statements against Daniel Ortega’s government by president-elect Javier Milei.

“Given repeated statements and words by the new rulers, the government (...) has decided to withdraw its ambassador, writer and communicologist Carlos Midence,”, said Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada, in a brief press release broadcast by government media in Managua.

“The withdrawal is effective immediately,” before Milei's swearing-in as president on December 10, it added.

Officials appointed by Milei have said that they deliberately excluded Ortega from invitations to the inauguration, as well as the presidents of Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.

Milei has previously said that he would not further “relations with communists, including Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Nicaragua or China."

“We have circulated the note of our foreign minister, Denis Moncada, informing the withdrawal of our ambassador ... representing us in Argentina who is already en route to Nicaragua,” said Vice-President Rosario Murillo, Ortega's wife, in comments to local media.

“For the reasons explained there, our ambassador returns with dignity,” added Murillo, who is also the government spokeswoman.

Since he returned to power in 2007, Ortega had maintained good relations with Argentine leaders president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and then his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015), but ties with current Peronist president, Alberto Fernández, have deteriorated. Both national leaders have kept their distance from one another.

In August 2021, Managua recalled its ambassador in Buenos Aires – as well as those of Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica – because of the external criticism over the arrest of rival presidential candidates to Ortega in elections where he was re-elected. The freedom and validity of the vote was questioned by many in the international community.

In September that year, Nicaragua rejected Argentina’s aspiration to assume the pro-tempore presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), claiming that Buenos Aires had interfered in its “internal affairs” by criticising the arrest of Ortega's opponents.

In August 2022, Ortega criticised Fernández over the detention of a Venezuelan-Iranian aeroplane which was held in Argentina for weeks at the request of the United States.

Over half of the members of the Organisation of American States (OAS) supported in January 2022 an Argentine-penned declaration condemning the presence in Nicaragua, at Ortega’s invitation, of an Iranian wanted for the terrorist attack against the AMIA Argentine Israeli Association in 1994.

In September 2022, Ortega joined other rulers who condemned a failed attempt on Fernández de Kirchner’s life, a week after the prosecution called for her arrest and for her to be barred from politics due to alleged corruption.

“We are saddened by the events ... in Argentina, where armed violence invades that democracy which has been so taken care of,” said Ortega in a message to the Argentine VP after the failed assassination.

“To you, with admiration, respect and affection, during these tough times”, said the Nicaraguan President in a message to Fernández de Kirchner when she was called to be barred from politics.

in July 2014 Ortega stood in solidarity of the then-Argentine president when she was facing the dispute with default debt creditors in US courts.

“We’re backing Argentina, President Cristina Kirchner, in her battle against vulture funds,” Ortega told state television, referring to holdout bondholders.

– TIMES/AFP