“It is not up to us,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has declined a Ukrainian request to arrest Vladimir Putin should the Russian leader visit the country this fall for the inauguration of its new head of state.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin last year in connection with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Mexico is one of 124 nations recognizing the jurisdiction of The Hague-based body.
“We cannot do that,” Lopez Obrador said in response to questions from journalists at a Thursday press conference. “It is not up to us,” he added, as reported by Reuters.
Izvestia newspaper reported the previous day that Mexico had invited Putin to the October inauguration of its new president, Claudia Sheinbaum. According to the Mexican Embassy in Moscow, the Russian leader will decide whether to attend the ceremony himself or send another high-ranking official to represent the country.
The Ukrainian embassy in Mexico responded by reminding the government that Putin is subject to an ICC arrest warrant and urging them to apprehend him if he enters the country. “We are confident that the Mexican government would comply with the international arrest warrant by handing the aforementioned person over to the judicial body of the UN in The Hague,” Kiev’s diplomatic mission stated in a Wednesday press release. The statement also expressed gratitude to Mexico City for inviting Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to the inauguration.
Mexico has maintained a neutral stance on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with Lopez Obrador criticizing US military aid to Kiev and the West’s sanctions against Moscow. The outgoing president’s successor, Sheinbaum, is a close ally and is expected to continue his policies.
In March 2023, the ICC formally accused Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights of “forcible transfer of the population,” referring to evacuations of minors from combat zones during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Moscow has dismissed the allegations as false, while also accusing the court of political bias. Russia, which never ratified the 1998 Rome Statute that established the ICC, also pointed out that the UN body lacked jurisdiction over it.