THE Lord Mayor of Oxford has turned down a potential meeting with a Nicaraguan ambassador this week after being warned it would 'damage the city’s reputation'.

Colin Cook was warned that the suggested meeting with ambassador Guisell Morales-Echaverry could be seen as an endorsement of her government's hugely-controversial crackdown on protestors this year.

However Mr Cook is still planning to meet with the mayor of Oxford's Nicaraguan twin city León – Roger Gurdián – on Wednesday, and said if the country's political crisis came up he would be interested to discuss it.

Mr Cook explained that he had long planned to meet with Dr Gurdián this week and never invited the ambassador, but said someone had asked if she could come along.

This prompted a warning from historian of Nicaragua Dr Hilary Francis, and Mr Cook said: "We suggested that would not be a good idea."

The crisis in Nicaragua has been growing since April when protestors began calling for an end to the government of president Daniel Ortega.

The demonstrations started over state pension reform but a government crackdown has seen dozens killed.

In her letter Dr Francis – a research fellow at the University of Northumbria – said that more than 300 people had been killed, ‘the majority of them unarmed civilians’.

She warned that Ms Morales-Echaverry had ‘played a lead role in defending the Nicaraguan government’s actions’.

She also warned that Nicaraguan state media had been using her recent engagements in the UK ‘as evidence the world supports [her] government’.

She concluded: “There is no doubt that your meeting with the ambassador will also be used in this way. I am sure that you would not want the reputation of your office, or the city of Oxford, to be damaged by this association.”