Nicaragua Wants Guanacaste Back
The decision by Costa Rica to send the dispute over right to navigate the San Juan to the International Court has now Nicaragua's foreign minister, Normal Caldera, saying that his country will ask that Costa Rica give back Guanacaste.

Nicaragua claims that Guanacaste belongs to it and was seized by Costa Rica back in 1825, when the Partido de Nicoya made the decision of annexation with Costa Rica.

Caldera, on Nicaraguan television, said that his country is analyzing the possibility of reclaiming Guanacaste from Costa Rica.

"There are those who say, well, if now Costa Rica doubt the Laudo Cleveland, we  have doubt and ask that Guanacaste be returned to us, in a counterattack", said Caldera.

Caldera added that the demand is coming from a number of "jurists" from within the Nicaraguan government.

Costa Rica obtained navigational rights to the San Juan in the Cañas-Jerez agreement of 1858 and confirmed by the Laudo Cleveland agreement of March 1888, which forms part of the Costa Rica's political constitution, which states that the border limits between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is determined by the Cañas-Jerez agreement of 15 April 1858, ratified by the Laudo Cleveland of 22 March 1888.

Costa Rica is clear that the river belongs to Nicaragua and in its history has never made a claim for it.

However, following the annexation of the Partido de Nicoya to Costa Rica in 1824, Nicaragua made several claims for the territory that is now Guanacaste. To bring a solution to the claims, several treaties were made, the last being the Cañas-Jerez and later confirmed by U.S. President Grover Cleveland (known as the laudo Cleveland), who cleared up the dubious points of interpretation in the agreement over the border.

Costa Rica's president, Abel Pacheco, said that he won't even bother to analyze Nicaragua's claim, because, in his words "it is out of place".

Roberto Tovar, Costa Rica's foreign minister, added that the subject of Nicaragua's claim of Guanacaste is something that has been squabbled for yeas. "In 1858, the countries came to an agreement with respect to their borders", said Tovar.

Tovar re-iterated that the San Juan river belongs to Nicaragua, but Costa Rica has navigational rights.

That navigational rights under the agreement is at the heart of the dispute between the two countries and Costa Rica's decision to appeal to the Hague Court after Nicaragua's decision to limit Costa Rica's navigational rights when the agreement expired not long ago.

Tovar was firm in saying that there is nothing to discuss with Caldera over his country's claim on Guanacaste.

"Guanacaster belongs to Costa Rica.  The agreement says so, the laudo say so, history says so, and logic says so", said Tovar.

The head of the Movimiento Libertario party, Carlos Herrera, added that "the political climate in Nicaragua is such that their are putting up curtains of smoke to hide their problems". "They (Nicaraguans) invent things to side track their people from the real problems" added Herrera.

Presidential candidate for the Partidi Unión para el Cambio, Alvarez Desanti, added that Costa Rica will respond with "firmness, maturity and wisdom, in whatever foreign challenge".