Argentina Senate rejects Chile’s intention to extend its continental shelf

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Senate of Argentina has approved a resolution rejecting the Chilean Government’s intention to extend the limits of its maritime border in the Patagonia region, which Buenos Aires has reiterated “contradicts” the treaties reached between the neighboring countries on the continental shelf in 1984.

Thus, with 58 votes in favor and, therefore, unanimously, the Argentine Upper House has approved “the opinion of the draft statements that support the legislation on the outer limit of the Argentine continental and insular shelf and reject the claim of the Chilean government to extend its own,” the body has communicated through its Twitter account.

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In the statement, the Senate has shown its “most energetic rejection” to the decree approved by the Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera, as well as its “strongest support to the work carried out by the Argentine State through the National Commission of the Outer Limit of the Continental Shelf (COPLA), which is in accordance” with the Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed between the two countries in 1984.

The president of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Upper House, Rodolfo Rodríguez Saá, has called the decision taken in Santiago “inconsistent and in violation of international treaties”. “We are greatly surprised by the decree of the President of Chile”, added Rodríguez Saá, to affirm that “his pretension is not acceptable for the Republic of Argentina because it raises an issue that must be resolved through dialogue,” reports ‘Página 12’ site.

Piñera signed last August 27 the decree that attributed to Chile sovereign rights over a territory partially located on the Argentine side. Argentina has accused him of wanting to “appropriate a part of the Argentine continental shelf and an extensive area of the seabed and ocean floor.”

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