MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK rekindles past foes Antarctic “cooperation spirit”

Chile and Argentina in the coming days will advance on a common strategy to counteract Britain's offshore claims in Antarctica it was confirmed by Argentine Foreign Affairs sources in Buenos Aires, reported the local Sunday press.

The idea of both countries is to "rekindle" the spirit of the understandings reached in the early fifties by then Presidents Juan Perón and Carlos Ibáñez del Campo which were fostered by "Britain's advance in Antarctica", according to those same sources. During the first week of December, Chile's Deputy Foreign Secretary Alberto Van Klaveren is scheduled to meet with his Argentine counterpart Roberto García Moritán to draft common guidelines following on the first contacts established during the recent Ibero-American summit held in Santiago de Chile by the heads of both foreign offices, Alejandro Foxley and Jorge Taiana. Last mid October the British press reported that the UK would be claiming sea bed rights over a million square kilometers offshore Antarctica in the framework of the Law of the Sea Continental Shelf Borders, a claim contemplated for the coastal states (up to 350 kilometers) with a deadline presentation in 2009. However the two countries recall that under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty sovereignty claims over the Antarctic continent are banned. Apparently in 1952/53 Argentina and Chile, -that have their own claims in Antarctica and offshore-, closely cooperated in those areas where their claims overlapped, between 53 and 74 West. Argentina on its side at the end of the month will be sending a top political delegation to Antarctica which includes the head of the Antarctica desk in the Foreign Affairs office, Mariano Memoli, the chairman of the Lower House Foreign Affairs committee Ruperto Godoy, and other Congress members. Taiana is also scheduled to visit Argentina bases in Antarctica in the first quarter of next year. Meantime the Antarctic Departments from the Chilean and Argentine armies announced that in the second half of the coming season joint military patrols will climb Mount Vinson, the highest mountain in Antarctica, 5.100 meters. UK also announced it was considering a similar presentation before the UN regarding claims offshore the South Atlantic islands, (Falklands, South Georgia and South Sandwich).