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by Staff Writers Lima (AFP) Feb 2, 2012 A young Chilean has been detained for taking photographs of a military barracks in southern Peru, the second such arrest in as many days near a military installation, police said Thursday. The two countries historically have had strained relations over a border dispute dating from the late 19th century when Chile defeated Peru in the War of the Pacific. The latest arrest involved an unidentified 19-year-old who a police source said had been invited to a sports event Wednesday at the Gregorio Albarracin military base in Tacna, a Peruvian region that borders Chile. "It appears that out of curiosity he took some photographs of the barracks stables, but it was in a restricted area so he was detained by the military police," the source, who asked not to be identified, told AFP. On Tuesday, another Chilean, 34-year-old Luis Maximiliano Serain Gutierrez, was arrested near the Talara air base, more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) north of Lima, Defense Minister Alberto Otarola said. Regional press reports said Serain said he was touring South America by bicycle and had to camp out near the base because of a problem with one of the bicycle's wheels. In Santiago, Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno sought to calm nerves, telling CNN Chile that Serain had no connection to the Chilean military or any other institution. "He didn't have a camera, he didn't have maps, he didn't have blueprints related to the base. He had drawings -- he is a painter -- that had nothing to do with the base," Moreno said. "In Chile and Peru we have to turn our attention to other things. The truth is that we are not in a conflict, we are two countries with many things in common," he said. Suspicions between the two countries blew up into a diplomatic crisis in 2009 when Peru accused two Chilean military officers of paying a Peruvian military officer for state secrets.
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