SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) -Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said on Wednesday that he was recalling the Central American nation’s ambassador to Mexico for consultations after Mexico’s security minister claimed a drug trafficking plane had come from El Salvador, which Bukele denied.
Bukele, in a post on X, said that the Mexican government needed to clarify and rectify the comments made by Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch.
Garcia Harfuch, speaking in a morning press conference on Tuesday, had claimed that a small plane flown by drug traffickers had come from El Salvador before being intercepted in the Mexican state of Colima.
Bukele shared a map of the plane’s alleged flight path, which showed it appearing off the coast of Costa Rica – to the south of El Salvador – before heading north across the Pacific.
“The plane flew over the Pacific Ocean and never touched Salvadoran territory,” he said.
According to Mexican authorities, the three men aboard were arrested and 427 kilograms of cocaine were seized after the plane landed in Colima.
Bukele said that the men were all Mexican, “something no media outlet or official source has published so far.”
“El Salvador does not hide criminals or tolerate drug trafficking; we didn’t do that before, and we won’t do that now,” Bukele said. “Nor will we allow them to try to involve us in operations that are not our responsibility.”
Mexico’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Additional reporting by Kylie Madry; Editing by Kim Coghill and Michael Perry)
