MEXICO CITY -- Mexico could legally demand that the United States return eight islands off the California coast but has not pressed the claim because of 'negligence and impotence,' geographers said in a study published Tuesday.
The islands identified in the study as Mexican territory included Catalina.
A high-ranking Mexican diplomatic source, however, refuted the study and said there was no 'solid basis to demand sovereignty.'
The study by the Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics referred to the Archipelago of the North, an island chain that lies within 275 miles of the coast of southern California.
The islands are Santa Catalina, San Clemente (not the San Clemente that was once the western White HIuse of Richard Nixon), Santa Barbara, Anacapa, Santa Cruz, San Miguel, San Nicolas and Santa Rosa.
The United States began settling the then-unoccupied islands in 1852. Today they are used for agriculture and grazing, military bases and tourism.
The society claimed the islands were not part of the vast northwest section of Mexico ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican-American War.
It said the islands belong to Mexico because neither the 1848 treaty between Mexico and the United States, nor any other bilateral agreement, has mentioned transferring jurisdiction over the islands from Mexico to the United States.
The Mexico City newspaper Excelsior said the study claimed 'Mexican jurisdiction (over the islands) is well backed by international law.'
The newspaper quoted the society's report as stating only 'the negligence and impotence of the Mexican government could explain the absence of an open and formal claim of possession of the eight islands.'
Unified Socialist Party legislator Gerardo Unzueta said jurisdiction over the islands should be resolved 'at the level of the most urgent matters.'
Excelsior reported six separate studies on the islands, including ones by the Mexican Senate and the National University, concluded that the islands belonged to Mexico.
