Diplomatic tension: the Senate of Chile supported the expansion to southern Argentina

Natasha Niebieskikwiat

09/02/2021 13:24

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 09/02/2021 14:10

The Chilean Foreign Minister, Andres Allamand, avoided commenting on the statements of his peer, Felipe Solá, who accused the neighbors of having an "expansive vocation that Argentina rejects" around the decree of the neighboring government that delimited its continental shelf to the south of Tierra del Fuego in a maritime zone that overlaps with the platform extended by Argentina.

It is a conflict that has immensely strained Argentine-Chilean relations, although for now the two governments are trying not to detract from the framework of diplomatic solution and the letter of the treaties, which in this case the last instance takes them to a court of law. arbitration.

The Chilean decree of August 23 had delimited within its 200 nautical miles an area of

25,383 square kilometers in the Drake Pass sector, and there are only 5,302 square kilometers that overlap

with the area understood by Argentina, and even endorsed by different instances in the United Nations, south east of Cape Horn. 

"Chile favors a reasoned and constructive dialogue with the Argentine Republic, and it seems unofficial to enter into a greater public debate,

" Allamand said this Thursday from Spain.

Allamand had said Sunday that he would call Solá to discuss the controversy.

But in the two governments they assure that they have not yet spoken.

Foreign Minister Felipe Solá and the Secretary of the Malvinas Area, Daniel Filmus before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Meanwhile, the two countries maintain their respective positions and do not change it.

On Thursday at the last minute

, the Chilean Senate's Foreign Relations Committee supported President Sebastián Piñera's decree

to delimit the continental shelf.

His counterpart in Argentina had done the same earlier, where it was precisely that Sola launched his accusation against Chile.

"The aspiration that Chile now expresses extemporaneously contradicts the letter and spirit of the 1984 Peace and Friendship Treaty, manifesting an expansive vocation that Argentina rejects," Solá said together with the Malvinas secretary, Daniel Filmus, and two technicians from the Ministry of Foreign Relations, in an intervention before the Senate Committee. Despite having rebuked the PRO, to be defined by Chile or Argentina, Solá received the support of the opposition of Together for Change, including Julio Cobos, Pablo Daniel Blanco and Humberto Schiavoni. They

unanimously approved a resolution rejecting the Chilean measure promoted by the Peronist Adolfo Rodríguez Saá.

Meanwhile in Chile, the Senate Foreign Committee also unanimously approved a bill on controversy with Argentina.

This had been presented by Senator Jorge Pizarro (DC)

The text of the neighboring parliamentarians supports the "actions undertaken by the Government of Chile to enforce their rights" and also says that they trust that

"Chile and Argentina will demonstrate to the international community that through dialogue they can solve any difference

that may arise in the scope of their relations as neighboring countries that have a long history of cooperation and friendship ”.

However, at the moment, the countries only have differences.

To begin with, for Chile, the area they are discussing is not included in the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with which these countries put an end to disputes that almost led them to war in 1978, and opened the dialogue to other bordering conflicts.

It happens that the continental platform is discussed, which is in the bed and subsoil of the sea that belongs to every State that has coasts in the sea.

The State cannot prohibit the passage of ships there, but it can exploit its resources.

And that area is as important for Chile as Argentina on its way to Antarctica, while for our country it is also important for the Falklands, Georgia and the South Sandwich that it disputes with Great Britain.

For Argentina, everything is legislated by the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and it accuses Chile of breaking it.

On the other hand, the Argentine Foreign Ministry warned that Chile protested only now and not in 2009 when Bueno Aires presented its request to extend the platform from 200 nautical miles to 350. Chile says it did so because of a note to this country in which there would be stated to the Argentine Republic that his claim was impossible, reserving his rights "