Peruvian President Alan Garcia and his delegation pulled out of the APEC summit in Singapore early yesterday in protest over charges that Chile had paid a Peruvian military officer as a spy.
The espionage case has stoked diplomatic tensions in a long-running feud between Peru and Chile over their maritime border, but the two South American nations still share more than US$3 billion a year in bilateral trade.
The “president has left Singapore on his way back to Lima,” a Peruvian government official said.
Peru on Saturday recalled its envoy from Chile and said Garcia would leave the APEC summit early after Peruvian authorities said they had detained a Peruvian air force officer on charges he had spied for Chile.
Garcia and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet were scheduled to meet over the weekend as part of the APEC summit.
Chile’s government on Saturday rejected the spying accusations, and criticized Peru for over-reacting before any investigation had been concluded.
“When there are accusations of this type, governments have to be prudent and serious,” said Carolina Toha, a Chilean government spokeswoman, denouncing the espionage claims against two Chilean military officials.
“We want to be clear: Chile does not spy,” she said.
A Peruvian court earlier began extradition proceedings against the two Chilean officers, as the government launched an official inquiry, justice officials in Lima said.
The Chileans, identified as Daniel Marquez Torrealba and Victor Vergara Rojas, were allegedly working with an officer of the Peruvian air force, Victor Ariza Mendoza, whose detention officials announced on Thursday.
News reports said that Ariza, who worked in 2002 in Peru’s embassy in Santiago, has been charged with “revealing state secrets, money laundering and espionage” on behalf of Chile since September 2005.
Ariza, who reportedly confessed, would have earned US$3,000 a month for his involvement in passing on information, prosecutors said. Authorities said they were also looking into the possible involvement of another Peruvian military officer in the case.
The rift is the most serious in years between the two neighbors, which have had a long-running dispute over their maritime border in the Pacific Ocean.
Peru filed suit against Chile last year at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, disputing the border and demanding more of the Pacific Ocean fishing waters between them.
Chile says the maritime border was settled by treaties in 1952 and 1954 — treaties that Peru argues were meant to regulate fishing, not demarcate the border.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS