In diplomatic squabble, Argentina accuses Chile of trying to take over part of its territory

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Over the weekend the Argentine Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting a decree issued by President Sebastián Piñera setting new limits to the Chilean continental shelf that overlap with the Argentine continental shelf.

In detail, the Argentine communiqué says that Chile “intends to appropriate a part of the Argentine continental shelf and an extensive area of the seabed and ocean floor”, following a decree that set the limits of its sovereign territory in the area of Cape Horn, at the southernmost tip of the American continent.

Chile immediately refuted Argentina’s accusations that it intends to “appropriate” part of its continental shelf and an extensive area of seabed and assured that “nobody appropriates what belongs to them”.

“Nobody appropriates what belongs to them. The area indicated, the so-called legal continental shelf, which reaches up to 200 miles, belongs to Chile by right from the beginning simply because we are a coastal state,” said Chilean Foreign Minister Andres Allamand.

In an official statement in La Moneda (presidential headquarters), Allamand affirmed that “there is a historical continuity in the Chilean position and approach.”

In 2009, when Argentina formulated its request for a crescent of continental shelf extended to the southeast of point F, “Chile pointed out that this claim was unopposable and made a reservation of its rights,” Allamand explained.

It did the same in 2016, “when the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf ruled on this Argentine claim.” In 2020, “when Argentina legally established through a law in its Congress the limits of the extended continental shelf,” he added.

The reaction of the Chilean Foreign Minister comes only a day after his Argentine counterpart, Felipe Solá, denounced that the recent update by Chile of the Nautical Chart N°8, which delimits the maritime limits, represents “an unusual advance towards the East”.

“This measure intends to project the continental shelf to the East of the 67th meridian, which does not coincide with the Treaty of Peace and Friendship celebrated between both countries in 1984”, the Argentine minister stated in a communiqué.

Both governments, however, showed their willingness to solve the dispute through dialogue.

“Chile values very positively the coincidence that exists between both Foreign Ministries that this difference should be solved through dialogue following the historical brotherhood of our peoples and international law,” concluded the Chilean minister.

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