717.2114/82: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Nicaragua (Eberhardt)
23. Your telegram No. 33, January 30, 4 p.m.2 It is a matter of regret to the Department that President Moncada is personally opposed to the treaty between Colombia and Nicaragua3 and that there is strong opposition to the treaty in the Nicaraguan Congress and in the country at large. The Department is unable to understand why such opposition should exist, since Nicaragua, in giving up her claim to the San Andres Archipelago (which Nicaragua never occupied) without monetary compensation, obtains in return, likewise without monetary compensation, the renunciation of Colombia’s claim to the Mosquito Coast and Great and Little Corn Islands.
The Government of the United States has more than an academic interest in this adjustment, since it involves Great and Little Corn Islands, leased to the United States by Nicaragua in the convention of 1914,4 and therefore the Government of the United States would be much concerned if the treaty between Colombia and Nicaragua should fail.
Please discuss this subject again with the President and request him to urge approval of the treaty during the present session of the Nicaraguan Congress. You may say that the Department feels sure that neither Nicaragua nor Colombia could have expected a more advantageous treaty, and that no more favorable terms can be expected in the future if the present treaty is not approved.
- Not printed.↩
- Signed March 24, 1928; Foreign Relations, 1928, vol. i, p. 703.↩
- Ibid., 1916, p. 849.↩