718.1915/467: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Panama (Price)
45. Your 102, May 11, 8 p.m.5
You may inform President Porras that the Department cannot consider his suggestion that the period of 60 days, within which the Government of Panama was informed this Government expected it to comply with its suggestions in regard to the boundary dispute, be extended, if that extension is requested with the intention on the part of the Government of Panama to endeavor to reach some agreement with the Government of Costa Rica for a settlement of the controversy along lines other than those already indicated by the Department. In view of the agreement which has previously been reached between the Governments of Costa Rica and Panama, and in view of the just insistence of the Government of Costa Rica that the boundary line as defined in the Porras–Anderson Convention and in the arbitral award of the Chief Justice of the United States rendered thereunder be accepted as the boundary between the two Republics, this Government cannot consider an extension of the period above referred to if such extension is requested by the Government of Panama with the hope that it may reach some other agreement as to the boundary with the Government of Costa Rica. If, on the other hand, the Government of Panama proceeds directly to enter into negotiations with the Government of Costa Rica in order that an agreement may be reached between the two Governments as to the procedure of determining the boundary line as above indicated, and it should later on appear that an extension of the period of 60 days was reasonably required for reaching this agreement as to procedure, the request of the Government of Panama would be given appropriate consideration.
- Not printed.↩