MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile and Argentina consolidate bilateral integration and cooperation

Presidents Bachelet and Cristina Kirchner signed the agreement last October

Chile announced that the “Integration and Cooperation” agreement with Argentina, which was stamped by Presidents Cristina Kirchner and Michelle Bachelet last October 30, became effective as of Friday January 22nd.

The Chilean Foreign Affairs ministry release said that the document subscribed by the two presidents took place at the municipality of Maipú, “a historic and symbolic” location where the Liberators of the two countries, Bernardo O’Higgins and Jose de San Martín, sealed with a fraternal embrace, the independence of Chile”.

“This instrument, complementary of the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1984” marks and arranges the many mechanisms and instances that make up the current bilateral relation network and project it to the future, “and becomes the reference framework that will rule bilateral relations during the coming decades”, adds the release.

“The signing of the treaty ratifies the will of both countries to make relations more dynamic and enrich integration between both countries, which is one of the most solid and founded in the region”.

The new accord contemplates strengthening and expanding bilateral relations in a wide range of issues, from trade to culture, from defence to international affairs.

The document basically replaces the Peace and Friendship treaty of 1984, which was the result of years of negotiations, and Vatican mediation, to deactivate a very serious conflict between Argentina and Chile as a consequence of the dispute over the Beagle Channel, in the extreme south of the continent.

The treaty also contemplates among other things, the creation of a task group to draft a free circulation system to facilitate the movement of people from both countries.

Regarding communications, the integrated control systems in the five frontier passes: Huemules, San Sebastián, Pehuenche, Dorotea and Austral Integration Austral, will be expanded to make the circulation of people and goods more agile.