NEW YORK: Britain and Ecuador failed to reach agreement on the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday at a meeting of their foreign ministers here, officials said. “We see no immediate solution,” Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters after meeting with British Foreign Secretary William Hague on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Hague told Patino “that the UK was under an obligation to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden,” a spokesman for the British foreign secretary said in a statement. “The concept of ‘diplomatic asylum’, while well-established in Latin America, did not feature in UK law,” he said. “Both ministers agreed that they were committed to the search for a diplomatic solution to Mr Assange’s case. They were willing to meet again at this level in due course to continue these exchanges,” the British statement said.—AFP