UPDATE - Organization Of American States Condemns Violence During Protests In Ecuador

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th October, 2019) The Organization of American States (OAS) condemned on Tuesday the violence during the protests in Ecuador and called on all the involved parties to settle their differences via dialogue.

"The OAS General Secretariat firmly condemns the acts of violence, recorded within recent days in Quito. Kidnappings of police officers and servicemen, as well as destruction and looting of social property, burning cars and attacks on ambulance vehicles, are absolutely unacceptable," OAS Secretary General Luis Leonardo Almagro Lemes said in a statement.

OAS has also called on all the parties to resolve the disagreements via negotiations with respect for the supremacy of law.

Later, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry said that a number of Latin American countries had expressed support for Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno.

"Amid the public order disturbances taking place in the brother republic of Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay and Peru express their firm opposition to all the attempts to destabilize the legally established democracy as well as decisive support for the steps, made by President Moreno to restore peace and order with the tools provided by the constitution and law," the ministry said in a statement.

The Andean nation has been rocked by protests after Moreno unveiled economic reforms, which are part of an aid deal with the International Monetary Fund.

In response, transport unions announced a nationwide strike that left the country paralyzed for days. Clashes with police forced Moreno to declare a state of emergency and move the seat of the government out of the capital.