After weeks of the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange taking refuge on sovereign Ecuadorian soil at the embassy in London, the British government has announced that the embassy may not be so immune from the Metropolitian police after all.
The Foreign Office spokesperson said on Wednesday:
"Under British law we can give them a week's notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection."
"But that decision has not yet been taken. We are not going to do this overnight. We want to stress that we want a diplomatically agreeable solution."
"The UK has a legal obligation to extradite Mr Assange to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual offences and we remain determined to fulfill this obligation."
Ecuador, which is due to make a decision on Assange's plea for asylum this afternoon, said any move would be "interpreted by Ecuador as an unfriendly, hostile and intolerable act, as well as an attack on our sovereignty".
Live streaming by Assange supporters this morning showed Metropolitan police officers entering the embassy.
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