The move comes after Betsy Chavez, who is on trial on coup charges, fled to the Mexican embassy in Peru.
Published November 4, 2025
Peru has severed diplomatic relations with Mexico, accusing the country of granting asylum to a former Peruvian prime minister who is on trial for a 2022 coup attempt.
Monday’s announcement came hours after former Prime Minister Betsy Chávez, who served under former President Pedro Castillo, fled to the Mexican embassy in Peru.
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“Today, we learned with surprise and deep regret that Betsy Chávez, an alleged accomplice in the coup attempt by former President Pedro Castillo, has been granted asylum at the Mexican embassy in Peru,” Foreign Affairs Minister Hugo de Zera said at a press conference.
“In view of this unfriendly act, and in view of the repeated instances of interference in Peru’s internal affairs by the country’s current and former presidents, the Peruvian government has today decided to sever diplomatic relations with Mexico,” he added.
There was no immediate comment from Mexico.
Chavez’s lawyer, Raul Nobresilla, told local radio station RPP that he had not heard from his client for several days and did not know whether she had applied for asylum.
Chavez, who served as culture minister in Castillo’s cabinet, was appointed prime minister in November 2022 amid months of conflict between the president and Congress.
Castillo, a former rural schoolteacher and trade union activist who was dubbed Peru’s “first poor president,” was impeached by lawmakers the following month for trying to dissolve Congress.
After that, relations between Lima and Mexico rapidly deteriorated.
After being impeached, Castillo was arrested and charged with sedition and abuse of power while on his way to the Mexican embassy in Lima to apply for asylum.
Mr. Chavez was also indicted.
Peru expelled the Mexican ambassador in December 2022 after Mexico granted asylum to Castillo’s wife and children.
Castillo’s successor, then-President Dina Bolarte, also briefly recalled Peru’s ambassador to Mexico City in February 2023, accusing then-leftist President Andres Manuel López Obrador of interfering in his country’s affairs by expressing support for Castillo.
The former president and Chavez were put on trial in March of this year.
Castillo has been in preventive detention since his impeachment, while Chavez was released on bail in September.
Prosecutors had asked for a 25-year prison sentence for Chavez on suspicion of participating in Castillo’s plan to dissolve Congress.
They asked for a 34-year sentence for Castillo.
The two deny the charges.
