Peru on Friday strongly defended its diplomatic rebuke of Japan, accusing Tokyo of displaying a lenient attitude towards fugitive former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori.
"We wanted to make it clear that we are annoyed and mortified ... and that is why we withdrew our ambassador," Peru's foreign minister Oscar Maurtua told RPP radio in Lima. "We're fed up."
The angry words came after Peru withdrew its ambassador from Tokyo on Thursday, warning Japan was meddling in Lima's attempts to extradite Fujimori from Chile where the ex-president landed this week.
Fujimori's sudden departure from Japan, and Tokyo's interest in his case after he was arrested upon arrival in Chile, has reopened an old feud between Lima and Tokyo over the ex-president's legal status.
numerous charges
Peru had long sought Fujimori's transfer from Japan on numerous charges but Tokyo allowed the former president to stay, granting him a passport based on his Japanese heritage.
Fujimori, who held the presidency for a decade, chose Japan for his self-exile in 2000 after his government collapsed in scandal.
The final impetus for Peru's move may have come on Wednesday, when three Japanese diplomats held a 40-minute meeting with Fujimori after having lobbied for consular access.
Peru's foreign minister made clear that his country's irritation had been building for years.
"In short, it was a firm act of protest against everything that has happened in the past few years," Maurtua said.
He said the decision to withdraw Peru's envoy, Luis Macchiavello, would not affect trade or relations between the two countries.
Maurtua added that there would be "a time when we can renew the head of our mission [in Tokyo], but that will come in due time."
abrupt return
Fujimori's abrupt return to the region took Peru and other countries by surprise and seemed to fit in with the ex-president's bizarre political career.
Fujimori, accused of corruption and human rights abuses, withdrew from the political arena five years ago by faxing his resignation as president from a Tokyo hotel.
Fujimori's supporters say the ex-president's flight was a "calculated risk" and part of a plan to win back the presidency in next April's elections.
A Chilean court will first have to decide Fujimori's legal fate pending a request for transfer from Peru. Peruvian officials said on Friday they were preparing an extradition request for Chile and that it would be ready within two months as required by a treaty between the two countries.
Peruvian Minister of Justice Alejandro Tudela said he was not sure which charges would be listed on the extradition request.
Fujimori, who employed hardline tactics against Maoist Shining Path rebels, faces 21 counts in Peru on charges ranging from graft to running state death squads. He has dismissed the charges as politically motivated.
Though Peru made it abundantly clear that its protest was linked to Fujimori's case, Japan sought to play down the dispute and expressed surprise.
"I don't know the reason why the Peruvian government has stopped the function of ambassador to Japan," Foreign Minister Taro Aso said. "I don't think it is related to Fujimori."
the deputy to Peru's former ambassador to Japan, Jacques Bartra, told reporters that Peru had been irritated with "the slowness and delays shown by the Japanese authorities concerning the Peruvian government's extradition requests, which never got any reply."
Meanwhile the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee voiced support for Lima's effort to have Fujimori extradited, a visiting spokesman for the panel, Jose Ignacio Salafranca, said in Lima.
Meanwhile, Mexico fired six officials for negligence after they failed to notify superiors that Fujimori briefly stopped in the border city of Tijuana on his way to Chile, a top immigration official said on Friday.
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