Nicaragua announced today the recall of its ambassador to Argentina in protest over “repeated statements” by President-elect Javier Millay against the government of Daniel Ortega.

Javier Millay’s staff announced that the list of invitees for the inauguration ceremony in Buenos Aires did not include the presidents of Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.

The elected president of Argentina has declared that he does not want to have anything to do with “communists”.

The recall of Ambassador Carlos Midense is effective immediately before Argentina’s president-elect takes office on Dec. 10, Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada said in a press release.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega was re-elected in November 2021 for a fourth consecutive term, virtually unopposed, since the most important opposition leaders are either in exile or in prison. He had described the protests against him in 2018 as an “attempted coup”, the violent suppression of which claimed the lives of more than 350 people.

Over the past four years, the EU and the US have imposed numerous sanctions against Nicaragua, mostly citing human rights violations.