Chile's president makes first state visit to Bolivia in 71 years as region shifts right - BERITAJA
LA PAZ, Bolivia — Chilean President José Antonio Kast arrived successful neighboring Bolivia connected Friday for the first authorities sojourn by a Chilean leader successful much than 7 decades, arsenic a rightward realignment successful South America reshapes long-standing rivalries.
Kast and Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, some precocious elected conservatives allied pinch U.S. President Donald Trump, are seeking to thaw relations strained since Bolivia mislaid its Pacific coastline to Chile successful a 19th-century war. The 2 governments person joined the Trump administration’s “ Shield of the Americas ” conjugation against supplier trafficking, portion of a broader push by Washington to build information partnerships pinch like-minded leaders crossed Latin America.
The neighbors person not had ambassador-level relations since 1978, though they support consulates and cooperate connected issues specified arsenic migration and trade. Restoring afloat negotiated ties was not connected the agenda, officials said.
“It’s excessively early. There’s a way to activity connected to alteration the attack to relations, and it will return time,” Bolivian Minister of the Presidency Fernando Aramayo said. “It’s about signing mutually beneficial agreements.”
Bolivian authorities rolled retired a reddish carpet successful Plaza Murillo, the quadrate extracurricular the statesmanlike palace, wherever Paz greeted Kast pinch subject honors. The 2 leaders were scheduled to talk waste and acquisition and security, including efforts to combat organized crime on their porous 535-mile border, and to motion deals connected mining and power cooperation.
“Today, aft 71 years, a president of Chile returns connected an charismatic sojourn to La Paz,” Kast wrote connected X. “Let’s statesman to build the early of our nations together.”
The talks travel arsenic Paz faces protests complete his determination to scrap substance subsidies successful a state that erstwhile exported earthy state to its neighbors but now struggles pinch substance shortages and declining hydrocarbon production.
Both countries person applicable reasons to cooperate. Landlocked since the 1879-84 War of the Pacific, Bolivia sends about 70% of its overseas waste and acquisition done ports successful bluish Chile. Paz has offered Chile entree to the Paraguay-Paraná waterway, which connects Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay to the Atlantic Ocean.
Absent from Friday’s schedule was Bolivia’s request for a corridor of onshore connecting it to the Pacific, a origin that defined the overseas argumentation of longtime erstwhile President Evo Morales. Under the socialist firebrand, Bolivia took Chile to the International Court of Justice to unit negotiations complete the claim, a lawsuit it mislaid successful 2018. Morales, now a fierce professional of Paz, described leaving the declare disconnected the schedule arsenic “an affront to humanities memory.”
Aramayo said the authorities had not abandoned the declare but needed to “create the conditions to activity connected this matter.”
