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Honduras, Nicaragua
embrace maritime border
dispute ruling
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Honduras, Nicaragua
embrace maritime border
dispute ruling
Honduran and Nicaraguan
Presidents Manuel Zelaya
and Daniel Ortega met on
Monday to welcome a
ruling by the
International Court of
Justice in The Hague
over the two countries'
shared border.
"The Hague ruling makes
Central America,
Honduras and Nicaragua
winners," Ortega said at
the meeting held in
Ocotal, a town 226 km
from Nicaragua's capital
Managua and 215 km
southeast of Honduras's
capital Tegucigalpa.
"There are neither
winners or losers," said
Honduran President
Zelaya.
The court ruled against
Honduras, which had
called for the
15thparallel to be the
two nations' sea border,
giving Nicaragua more
sea territory but
awarding Honduras some
islands claimed by
Nicaragua.
Defining the border was
complicated as it had to
start at the constantly
shifting mouth of the
Coco River, which forms
the land border.
Judges at the court
started the new border
at a point off the coast
and told both countries
to agree on a line
linking that point with
a boundary marker on
land set in the 1960s.
Manuel Martinez, the
court's president, said
the ruling was a victory
for both because it
strengthens regional
integration and rules
out new conflicts.
Sympathizers with
Nicaragua's ruling
Sandinista National
Liberation Front took to
the streets, celebrating
what they described a
national victory over
Honduras.
The court still has to
consider a Nicaraguan
case against Colombia,
over whether the 82nd
meridian should form the
two nations' sea border. |
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