Peru and Chile were embroiled Saturday in a worsening serious diplomatic row, after two Chilean military officials were allegedly found to be spying in Peru. The espionage allegations forced the cancellation of a meeting in Singapore Sunday between Peru's President Alan Garcia and his Chilean counterpart Michelle Bachelet.
Meanwhile, a Peruvian court began extradition proceedings against the two Chilean officers and the government has launched an official inquiry, justice officials 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 here said that Ariza, who worked in 2002 in Peru's embassy in Santiago, has been charged with "revealing state secrets, money laundering and espionage." Authorities said they were looking into the possible involvement of another Peruvian military officer in the case.
The row prompted Garcia on Saturday to cancel planned talks with Bachelet and quit a regional Pacific summit a day early. "I am returning 24 hours earlier than scheduled so I can obtain complete and sufficient information (on the issue) and to be able to speak from Peru," Garcia said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit.
"We have to cancel (the meeting with Bachelet) because we are going back to Peru over this issue," Garcia told reporters. He said he would wait until his return to Peru "before giving a statement including all the elements that they should have there," he said in Singapore.
Also speaking in Singapore on Friday, Peru's foreign minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde, decried an "offensive act" by Chile, and called on Santiago to launch "an investigation into who in Chile gave the order" behind the alleged spying operation.
Garcia Belaunde said Peru's ambassador in Santiago would return home for consultations, but ruled out a break in bilateral relations. The rift is the most serious in years between the two neighbours, which have had a long-running dispute over their maritime border in the Pacific Ocean.
Peru last year brought a claim before the International Court of Justice over territory lost to Chile in an 1879-1883 war. Peru claims an area of about 100,000 square kilometres in the Pacific Ocean which currently are under Chilean control. For its part, 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.
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