Foreign Minister Ampuero and extension of the deadline for Bolivia to present its Counter-Memorial: "Demonstrates the weakness of its arguments"

Minutes before taking off for Washington to participate in the OAS General Assembly, Foreign Minister Roberto Ampuero referred to the extension of the deadline for Bolivia to present its Counter-Memorial in the trial over the waters of the Silala River. "This demonstrates the weakness of Bolivia's arguments, the inability to put together reasons to underpin its position and at the same time underscores the strength of the Chilean argument," he said.

The Foreign Minister reported that two weeks ago Bolivia asked the International Court of Justice to extend the deadline for submitting its counter-memorial, while recalling that Chile submitted its report in 2016, two years ago. "Bolivia has had a lot of time to gather arguments and has not been able to do so, it is behind schedule and has requested an extension," he said.

"We must remember that this issue was brought up by Bolivia in 1999. They have been unable to accumulate arguments with which to confront Chile's position for almost 20 years," he added.

The Secretary of State said that Chile accepted that Bolivia should present these arguments two months later. "The Court in The Hague transmitted this position of Chile to Bolivia, so we are now waiting for Bolivia to finally be able to add and articulate the arguments that it has not been able to put forward for 20 years".

"We urge Bolivia to tell the truth, we urge the government of Evo Morales to tell the truth. This is late, not because of Chile, which already fulfilled its function of delivering the report two years ago, but because of Bolivia's inability to articulate its arguments," he concluded.