Arica-Parinacota Region

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Arica-Parinacota is the XV region of Chile that was approved on 2006-12-19 and expected to be functional by mid 2007. It contains the provinces Arica and Parinacota, formerly of the Tarapacá Region.

[edit] Border dispute with Peru

On January 26th, 2007, Peru’s government issued a protest against Chile’s demarcation of the coastal frontier the two countries share. According to the Peruvian Foreign Ministry, the Chilean legislatures have endorsed a plan regarding the Arica and Parinacota region which does not comply with the current, established territorial demarcation. Moreover, they allege that the proposed Chilean law includes an assertion of sovereignty over 19,000 sq. meters of land in Peru's Department of Tacna. According to the Peruvian Foreign Ministry, Chile has defined a new region "without respecting the Concordia demarcation."

The Chilean deputies and senators that aproved the law said they didn't notice this error. For its part, the Chilean government has asserted that the region in dispute is not a coastal site named Concordia, but instead refers to boundary stone No. 1, which is located to the northeast and 200 meters inland. ^[1] A possible border dispute was averted when the Chilean Constitutional Court ruled on January 26th, 2007 unconstitutional legislation that Peru said could be seen as a move by Chile to encroach on its maritime territorial sovereignty.

While agreeing with the court's ruling, the Chilean government reiterated its stance that the maritime borders between the two nations were not in question and have been formally by the international community. [1] It has been reported that following the Chilean judicial ruling in Lima’s favor, the Peruvian government has stated that it might turn to the international court at The Hague to solve the dispute.^[2]

The law was heavily criticized in both Chile and Peru. In Peru nationalists saw that as a proof of that Chile don't care about the international treaties that defines the border to Peru. In Chile politicians were upset of that the friendly government of Alan Garcia may chill down the good relations and gestures he had started toward Chile. Another thing criticized in Chile was the contradiction of one of the Chilean arguments in Chilean-Peruvian Maritime Dispute, that said that Peruvians can not define by they selves the maritime borders as they did in a law during the government of Alejandro Toledo.

[edit] References