The Argentine foreign minister, Pablo Quirno, defended the measures announced by the trans-Andean leader Javier Milei to reinforce the sovereignty claim over the Malvinas Islands, stating that his country is “bicontinental” and “bioceanic”.
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The statement reopened a front in the relationship between Chile and Argentina, following the recent controversy over the Strait of Magellan, which had apparently been settled after the meeting between President José Antonio Kast and Milei, following the Argentine leader’s participation in the Madrid Forum in Santiago.
In an interview with the Argentine channel América 24 (A24), the foreign minister referred to his country’s actions regarding the exploitation of natural resources in the Malvinas Islands by the United Kingdom, pointing to the project to build an Integrated Naval Base in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego.
In this context, he stated: “That naval base is precisely something Argentina has needed for a very long time. Argentina is a bicontinental, bioceanic country and what it has to do is precisely strengthen its presence in the South Atlantic, because it is the path to Antarctica.”
His intervention is known one day after the governments of Chile and Argentina, in a joint statement, reaffirmed the validity of the treaties establishing Chilean sovereignty over the entire Strait of Magellan.
“Both presidents agreed that the legal regime of the Strait of Magellan is that established by the 1881 Boundary Treaty and the 1984 Peace and Friendship Treaty, instruments that are fully in force and have definitive character for both States, and that establish the sovereignty of the Republic of Chile over the entire strait,” reads the statement published by the two governments.
In the same document, Kast committed Chile’s support for the Argentine “sovereignty rights” over the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands, and the surrounding maritime spaces.
The Republican deputy for Magallanes, Alejandro Riquelme, rejected the statements made by Foreign Minister Quirno on Friday night about Argentina as a “bioceanic” country and demanded unrestricted respect for boundary treaties.
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In a statement, the legislator also recalled that bilateral agreements establish Chile’s respective projections towards the Pacific and Argentina’s towards the Atlantic.
“I categorically reject the statements of the Argentine foreign minister. Argentina can talk about integration or bioceanic corridors, but that is very different from talking about sovereignty. The Additional and Clarifying Protocol of 1893 expressly established that Chile cannot claim any point towards the Atlantic and that Argentina cannot claim any point towards the Pacific,” he pointed out.
He then added that “this principle was also reiterated in the Presidential Declaration signed by Eduardo Frei and Carlos Menem in Buenos Aires on December 16, 1998.”
Similarly, he warned that the controversy adds to other recent episodes in which Argentine authorities have raised questions regarding boundary and sovereignty matters.
“The worrying thing is that it is becoming customary for Argentine authorities to try to reinterpret, relativize, or directly question treaties and international agreements that resolved these matters decades ago. Treaties cannot be respected only when they are convenient,” he said.
Along with this, he called to avoid that internal trans-Andean controversies open new fronts in the bilateral relationship. “Argentina must understand that its internal problems and conflicts cannot become new fronts with Chile nor use the bilateral relationship to fuel nationalist discourses,” he argued.
“Chile wants a good relationship with Argentina, but it must also demand unrestricted respect for treaties, our boundaries, and our sovereignty”, he emphasized.
