Peru’s new foreign minister resigns in latest blow to president

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Peru’s overseas minister, Miguel Rodriguez, has resigned after only one month in workplace, the nation’s overseas ministry stated on Friday, after public clashes between the official and leftist president Pedro Castillo.

“I’m writing to you to submit my irrevocable resignation to the place of Minister of State within the Workplace of International Relations,” Rodriguez wrote in a letter printed by the overseas ministry on Twitter.

“The purpose was to revitalize Peru’s overseas coverage, appropriate errors and attempt to strengthen the course of our nation’s worldwide life,” he added, with out elaborating.

Earlier this week, Castillo undermined Rodriguez’s August announcement that Peru was breaking diplomatic ties with the partially recognised Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Western Sahara.

On Thursday, Castillo tweeted that Peru reaffirmed the protection of the Sahara state’s “self willpower.”

The 2 politicians additionally disagreed on the Escazu Settlement, a regional environmental treaty, and Peru’s participation within the United Nations Conference on the Regulation of the Sea.

Rodriguez’s departure comes alongside that of Peru’s deputy transport minister Luis Rivera, who additionally resigned on Friday after being sentenced to 6 years in jail for corruption.

Approval scores for Castillo, who has been in workplace simply over a yr, have plummeted. He has already reshuffled his Cupboard a number of occasions and is battling a corruption probe led by the nation’s prosecutor.

(Reporting by Diego Oré in Mexico Metropolis; Further reporting by Marco Aquino in Lima; Writing by Isabel Woodford; Modifying by Matthew Lewis)