Chillied Sea Slugs

Background The background of this dispute goes back to the mid-1980s. In 1985, the then Foreign Minister of Peru, first addressed this issue formally with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile. The Chilean–Peruvian maritime dispute was a territorial dispute between the South American republics of Peru and Chile over the sovereignty of an area at sea in the Pacific Ocean approximately 37,900 square kilometres (14,600 sq mi) in size. Peru contends that its maritime boundary delimitation with Chile was not fixed, but Chile claimed that it holds no outstanding border issues with Peru. The dispute primarily concerned an area at sea between the parallel that crosses the end point of the land border between Chile and Peru, and the bisecting line perpendicular to the coasts of Chile and Peru. This line was formed by the overlapping of the baselines of both countries, forming a trapezoid of 67,139. 4 square kilometres (25,922. 7 sq mi). Peru requested an equitable division of the maritime territory, but Chile demanded sovereignty over approximately 38,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi) of the territory. On a secondary level, the dispute included the status of a maritime triangle to the left of the aforementioned trapezoid, approximately 28,471. 86 square kilometres (10,993. 05 sq mi) in size, which Chile considered part of the high seas and Peru as part of its maritime domain.