The Mexican president has asked Spain and the Vatican to apologise for the "invasion" of the Americas five centuries ago.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he wrote a letter to King Felipe VI of Spain and Pope Francis about the "many misdeeds that were committed".

In a video that was filmed at Mayan ruins in the southeastern state of Tabasco and posted on social media, Mr Lopez said: "There were killings, impositions".

He demanded an apology to "the original peoples for the violations of what are now known to be human rights".

Estamos en Comalcalco, vamos a Centla a conmemorar 500 años de la batalla de los españoles contra la resistencia de los mayas-chontales.



pic.twitter.com/M26g8nFXDl — Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (@AmIoPresidente) March 25, 2019

In response, Spain rejected the president's request "with all firmness".


"The arrival, 500 years ago, of Spaniards to what is today Mexican territory cannot be judged in the light of contemporary considerations," the government said in a statement.

"Our sibling peoples have always known how to read our shared past without anger and with a constructive perspective, as free peoples with a common inheritance and an extraordinary projection."

The statement also reinforced Spain's willingness to work closely with Mexico to strengthen relations.

Mr Lopez, a leftist, became president in December 2018, and his policy proposals include universal access to public colleges, amnesty for some drug war criminals and increased social spending.

Image: King Felipe VI of Spain has apparently received a letter from the Mexican president

He called for the 500-year anniversary of the conquest of Tenochtitlan - the capital of the Aztec empire on what is now Mexico City - to be a year of "historic reconciliation".

He said: "It is time to say we will reconcile but first let us apologise.

"I am going to as well because after the colonisation there was much repression of the original peoples."

The territory which is now Mexico was under Spanish rule for around 300 years before it gained independence in the early 19th century.

It is estimated that a total of 1.86 million Spaniards settled in the Americas during the post-colonial era.