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Bolivia ready to restore ties with Chile, but puts timeline on territorial feud

Xinhua, July 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Wednesday that he accepted to restore diplomatic ties with Chile, but set a timeline for the resolution of their long territorial feud.

Morales, at a press conference, said the ties, which have been severed since 1978, could be restored at once, but with two conditions, demanding that a sovereign territorial access to the Pacific Ocean be negotiated for Bolivia within five years, and that Pope Francis oversee the negotiations.

Furthermore, he invited the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, to travel to the Vatican and ask the Pope to guarantee the negotiations.

He added that Bolivia's demands had the support of "the entire world." He added that his government and all of Bolivia hoped for a positive reply from Chile so that the two countries could " overcome their problems and work together for our peoples."

In response, the spokesperson for the Chilean government, Marcelo Diaz, replied Wednesday that Chile would accept no conditions to be placed on the restoration of ties. "Chile has always said that it is ready to immediately restore ties with Bolivia, but this must be done without conditions," he told the press.

From May 4 to 8, the two countries presented their arguments to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. After hearing the arguments, the judges will declare if the ICJ has the jurisdiction to hear the case before the end of the year.

In April 2013, Bolivia presented a demand to the ICJ about this territorial dispute. Chile responded by declaring the ICJ did not have the authority to hear the case as it was already resolved with the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1904.

The two countries' dispute dates to the 1879 War of the Pacific, in which Bolivia lost some 400 km of coastline to neighboring Chile.

The landlocked country has been pressing Chile to provide it with sea access, possibly through a leasing agreement of some kind. Endite