The Minister of Foreign Affairs Heraldo Muñoz attended the activities in the context of President Bachelet's Public Account 2016.
The day started with the official photograph of President Bachelet along with her cabinet of ministers, at Cerro Castillo. Later on, the activities continued at the National Congress building where President Bachelet delivered her speech and the activities concluded with the commemorative ceremony of the 137th anniversary of the Battle of Iquique and the Chilean Navy Day.
Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz highlighted President Bachelet's speech and said that "it was a solid and unifying speech. It is a call that the President made in order to continue working for Chile as a country that belongs to everyone, Chile as a country of unity, dialogue and looking forward to the future which I think is important".
With regards to President Bachelet's words about the submission of Chile's counter-memorial, Foreign Minister Muñoz said "we just finished the draft document of the counter-memorial, in collaboration with international and national lawyers which will include the judicial, political, diplomatic and also historical counterarguments of our country".
Minister Muñoz also said that "it is necessary to be precise about the historical ties between Chile and Bolivia so that the International Court of Justice is aware of what really happened".
Finally, Minister Muñoz said that "we are satisfied with the work that has been done. The counter-memorial is 90 percent ready. There is only some adjustments to be done and I can assure that we will submit this document to the Court before the deadline".
During her speech, President Bachelet made reference to Chile's foreign policy and said that "the first priority of Chile's foreign policy is our region. We are a Latin American country: that's how we feel, the way we are seen, as such we want to speak to the rest of the world".
At the same time, Minister Muñoz signaled that "we believe in dialogue between brother nations and we believe in complementary work between distinctive integration schemes, for example trade facilitation and people movement. Our line of thought is and will continue to be looking for agreements and the prevalence of international law".
Regarding Bolvia's claim to the sea, the head of state said that "our country will submit a solid counter-memorial which was designed by a high level team. A counter-memorial that protects our national interests with judicial, historical and diplomatic arguments".