Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, during a televised talk show, said Israel should apologize for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tweet in which he praised US President Donald Trump for his plan to build a wall on the Mexican border, a statement the Mexican top diplomat said was perceived as a blatant aggression against his country.
The Israeli government had sought to tone-down Netanyahu’s tweet after a rebuke from Mexico on Saturday, saying the Prime Minister was referring to Israel’s specific security experience and not taking a position on US-Mexico relations. However, Mexican Foreign Minister Videgaray said the explanation was not good enough, and that the Israeli government needed to clarify and “correct”
its position.
“We have had many gestures of friendship with the Israeli people. It is absolutely incomprehensible that its prime minister, carries out an expression of this type, that we consider frankly an aggression. We all know in Mexico that when talking about Trump’s wall, it’s obvious he was referring to the relationship with Mexico, even if the Tweet by Prime Minister Netanyahu does not say this, it seems to us that the Prime Minister must treat Mexico, as what it is, a friendly country,” said Videgaray.
Yesterday, Israel’s ambassador to Mexico, Jonathan Peled, was summoned for a clarification-meeting with the Mexican deputy foreign minister, Carlos Alberto de Icaza, prior to which the Israeli ambassador stressed that one tweet should not affect the good relations between the two countries. The Israeli Foreign ministry in Jerusalem told TV7 that the talks on the matter would continue to smooth over the difficulties and that Israeli president Reuven Rivlin held a phone conversation today with his Mexican Counterpart, President Enrique Pena Nieto, in a bid to dispel the tension between the two countries.