The minister of Foreign Relations of Chile, Alberto Van Klaverendescribed it as a “good faith error” that the Argentina Army will build a part of the Maritime Traffic Surveillance and Control Post Milestone 1 more than three meters inside the national territory in Cabo del Espíritu Santo, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Magallanes Region and Chilean Antarctica.
The facilities were inaugurated in April and part of the solar panels are erected in Chile, which is why the country formally claimed its neighbor. The Argentine ambassador in Santiago, Jorge Faurierecognized this error and stated that they cannot be moved at this time and that we will have to wait for the southern summer.
Minister Van Klaveren referred to the construction of this post during the president’s tour Gabriel Boric to Europe and stated that “we were informed of this situation. In turn, our Border and Boundary Directorate “We quickly verified on the ground the mistake that had been made by this Argentine company that carried out the installation.”
“We have a very extensive border with Argentina and this is not an absolutely exceptional fact. Sometimes these types of errors occur… we believe that it is an error, obviously in good faith. And as appropriate, we made this known to the Argentine Government through the corresponding channels. And we are going to look for a quick solution to this problem,” he said.
The minister indicated that “a large part of the installation, obviously, is in Argentine territory and there is a small portion that remained in Chilean territory, which must be corrected and we will see the most effective way to correct it” and as for this being carried out in summer, expressed that ““we are going to evaluate the situation, according to the terrain conditions and also the meteorological conditions.”
Southern differences
Although the Government of Chile tries to lower the profile of this issue, this once again complicates relations in the southern zone. Previously, Argentina published, in 2020, the Law 27,557 that extends its marine limits beyond 200 miles, incorporating the Argentine Continental Shelf cwith 1,782,500 square kilometers. Part of this territory includes 5,000 km² located south of the point F which Chile claims belong to it by virtue of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984.
On August 27, 2021, Chile published the update of Nautical Chart No. 8 that determined the outer limit of the continental shelf of 200 nautical miles from Punta Puga, in the Los Lagos Region, to Diego Ramírez Islands, in the Region of Magellan and Chilean Antarctica, and which extends south to the east of the Cape Horn meridian.
Argentina issued a statement a day later accusing Chile of trying to appropriate “a part of the Argentine continental shelf and an extensive area of the seabed and ocean floor, a maritime space that is part of the Common Heritage of Humanity in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”.
That country stressed that the outer limit of its continental shelf is set at the National Law 27,557 on August 4, 2020, which includes the presentation he made before the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf and that fits the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984ensuring that this was approved by said commission without objections from Chile, however the latter country issued a verbal note to Argentina reiterating that this border layout is unenforceable because it does not comply with the current treaties.
In this context, Chile sent Argentina a letter of protest in August 2021 over the content of the National Defense Policy Directive (DPDN) which attributes joint controls over the Strait of Magellan and the Drake Passage that Chile claims as its own, according to different treaties signed with the trans-Andean country.
