Last May the two governments, which have not had full diplomatic relations since 1978, began talks on Bolivia's demand to restore its land corridor to the Pacific. The last time they formally discussed the issue was in 1987, failing to reach agreement.

Bolivia has been landlocked since 1879, after Chile seized Bolivia's 250-mile coastline in the 1879-84 War of the Pacific, which was primarily fought among Chile, Peru, and Bolivia over control of lucrative nitrate deposits in the Atacama Desert. The conflict was also a proxy war between British interests, which dominated Chile, and the rising U.S. imperialist power, which backed Peru in the war.

For more than a century, workers and peasants throughout Latin America, including class-conscious workers in Chile, have supported the Bolivian demand for an outlet to the Pacific as part of a struggle for national self-determination and against domination and plunder by imperialism and the larger capitalist powers in the region.

The Morales government has appealed for Bolivia's right to regain access to the sea at various international forums, including the Organization of American States general assembly in June and the September 14 meeting of the Group of Landlocked Developing Countries during the Havana summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.

In 2003 a plan by the Bolivian government to begin exporting natural gas to the United States at low prices, including the construction of a pipeline across the Chilean region claimed by Bolivia, was the catalyst for massive popular mobilizations that forced the resignation of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.

As part of the steps taken by the new Bolivian government to increase state control of the country’s oil and gas industry, and to press the Chilean government to resolve the land dispute, Morales and Argentine president Néstor Kirchner signed an agreement in June barring the resale of Bolivian natural gas to Chile.  
 
 
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