By GINGER THOMPSON
 
PANAMA, May 2 - Mexico withdrew its ambassador from Cuba on Sunday after a weeklong exchange of angry diplomatic dispatches that have pushed the relationship between former allies to its lowest point in recent years.

In a televised address, Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez accused the Cuban government of words and actions that infringe on Mexican sovereignty.

Interior Minister Santiago Creel said two Cuban government officials in Mexico had been found "carrying out activities incompatible with their status," an expression widely understood to denote spying.

"Mexico does not want to change its friendly relationship with a nation of people that historically has been its brother," Mr. Derbez said. "But let it be clear that an act of the magnitude of the one by President Castro and of his officials in Mexico cannot be ignored."

The Mexican officials were referring, among other things, to a May Day speech delivered Saturday by President Fidel Castro of Cuba. In the speech, Mr. Castro attacked Mexico for voting in favor of a United Nations resolution that criticized Cuba's record on human rights.

"It hurts profoundly that the prestige and influence gained" by Mexico "in Latin America and the world for their impeccable foreign policy, born from a true and profound revolution, has been turned to ashes," he said.

Late Sunday, Peru also withdrew its ambassador from Cuba, citing similar remarks by Mr. Castro about Peru's vote in the same speech.

Mexico's withdrawal of its ambassador is only the latest in a series of incidents that have strained relations between Cuba and Mexico since Vicente Fox became Mexico's first opposition president four years ago.

In March 2002, Mr. Castro stormed out of a meeting of world leaders, attended by President Bush, in Monterrey, Mexico. Several weeks later, Mr. Castro played a tape on national television of a private telephone conversation in which President Fox had urged him to avoid contact with Mr. Bush.

New trouble between Cuba and Mexico began brewing last week, when Mr. Castro deported a businessman wanted in Mexico for his connections to a scandal that has exposed corruption in the government of Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico City.

Mayor Lopez has accused the federal government of staging the scandal to tarnish his image. On deporting Carlos Ahumada, Mr. Castro issued a statement that supported the mayor's conspiracy theories against the Fox government.

On Sunday night, leaders of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party urged the government to avoid deepening the dispute.

"This is a delicate moment in which diplomacy and good will ought to prevail," said Francisco Mora Ciprés, a member of Congress.