The Israeli government has summoned the Chilean ambassador to a “reprimand” in protest at the decision by the South American nation’s President Gabriel Boric to refuse to host the Israeli ambassador, Gil Artzyeli, at La Moneda Palace last Thursday (15). .
“Israel takes seriously the worrying and unprecedented behavior of Chile,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “It seriously damages relations between the countries,” the official statement added.
Artzyeli had been asked to present his credentials to the president, but according to Chilean media, Boric declined the visit after being informed of the alleged murder of a Palestinian teenager in an Israeli army operation.
According to reports, this fact prompted the Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonia Urrejola, to inform the Ambassador of the President’s decision to postpone the presentation of the credentials.
In light of this, Chile’s Ambassador to Israel, Jorge Carvajal, has been summoned to Israeli diplomatic headquarters this Sunday (18th) for a “rebuke” session designed to set out Israel’s position on the matter.
Chilean Foreign Ministry sources confirmed to Efe that Chile’s Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Ximena Fuentes met with the Israeli ambassador after Boric’s refusal.
The episode led to diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Senator Carmen Gloria Aravena, president of the ChileIsrael Parliamentary Friendship Group, made up of 14 other senators from different banks, explained that what happened “is not just an affront to a country with which Chile has a long and close friendship maintains, but it also endangers the bilateral relations”.
With over 500,000 inhabitants, Chile is the country with the largest Palestinian community outside of the Arab world.