Peru’s Congress unanimously approved a resolution on Wednesday that ratifies the country’s northern maritime border with Ecuador, state news agency Andina reported.
Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde said the approval of the resolution was a historical day for Peru.
“I’m very excited because today is a historical day for Peru that I am able to live with you and I want to express my deepest gratitude to Congress,” Garcia Belaunde said during a speech at Congress.
The accord confirms the maritime border as parallel to the equator cutting west across the Pacific. It also establishes that two agreements – signed in 1952 and 1954 – were fishing treaties and not related to the maritime border.
An agreement to delimit the boarder was signed in early May after Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa proposed the accord last year.
Peruvian officials have said the accord could provide a boost to the country’s dispute with Chile over their maritime border. That dispute is currently at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The dispute dates back to the 1879 – 1883 War of the Pacific, in which Peru and Bolivia lost substantial territory to Chile. Central to the row is 38,000 square kilometers, or about 14,500 square miles, of fishing-rich sea which Chile currently controls.
Chile says the current border, which also runs parallel to the equator, was established under two agreements from the 1950s. However, Peru claims those agreements were fishing treaties and the maritime zone has never been settled.
Peru’s proposed border follows the countries south-western sloping border into the ocean.
As a result, the signing of the agreement with Ecuador “is important because it ratifies the premise that Peru has always held up that the agreements of 1954 and 1952 are fishing [accords], and that will strengthen our position at The Hague,” Garcia Belaunde said previously.
