Chile’s president makes first state visit to Bolivia in more than 70 years

Chile’s President Jose Antonio Kast has travelled to Bolivia for the first state visit by a Chilean leader in more than 70 years.

Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz received him with a red-carpet welcome.

The two neighbours do not have full diplomatic relations and have had only consular ties since 1978. Bolivia has been landlocked since it lost a war against Chile nearly 150 years ago, costing it 400km of Pacific coastline. It has demanded a sovereign corridor to the ocean, which Chile refuses.

Paz, Bolivia’s new conservative president, said the challenge is not to resolve the past but to focus on the present and a shared future. “We need to push our integration process, because as Chile’s president says, if Bolivia progresses, so does Chile,” he said.

Kast said: “That our children will not have to wait 70 years to see their presidents shake hands.”

Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman reports from Santiago.

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