40th Anniversary Peace and Friendship Argentina and Chile

The Vatican celebrates the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between Argentina and Chile, signed on November 29, 1984, in Vatican City thanks to the diplomatic mediation of the Holy See. This intervention was a response to the request of the Chilean and Argentine Episcopates to put an end to a territorial dispute that had brought the two countries to the brink of war. The relationship between Chile and Argentina was long marked by contentious territorial and maritime disputes, originating from a confusing border demarcation inherited from the times of Spanish colonization, which over the centuries also led to several brief armed conflicts. At first these disputes were settled through the signing of a bilateral land border treaty in 1881, but in fact the diatribes soon returned to the forefront until they finally came to an end with the signing of the 1984 treaty.The commemorative stamp of the Treaty reproduces a photograph depicting the Argentine and Chilean Foreign Ministers in the presence of Saint John Paul II, who received them in audience shortly after the signing of the Treaty.