Bolivian officials complained on Monday that Chile was trying to intimidate its neighbors by increasing military activity along their nations' common border, a move Santiago insisted was merely aimed at stemming crime in the country's north.

"This should be seen as part of policy of ostentation and intimidation," Bolivian Minister of Defense Reymi Ferreira claimed, according to a report by Venezuela's semi-official Telesur television network.

But Ferreira's Chilean counterpart, Jose Antonio Gómez, told Publimetro that the objections raised by La Paz were unfounded and that the government was merely trying to solve issues of crime along the border.

"In the north, we are having problems because [individuals] enter from Bolivia and assault, steal and loot pickup trucks -- even large trucks -- and the Carabineros sometimes do not have the needed capacity" to control the situation, Gómez explained.

But the defense minister was quick to caution that he had not extended police powers -- typically carried out by Chile's uniformed national police force and gendarmerie -- to the armed forces.

"I am not saying that the army is doing the work of the Carabineros, but it could use its technological capabilities to provide information about where problems can occur," Gómez detailed. "We are ready to discuss, with greater openness, the collaborations that could eventually occur," he added in an apparent opening to Bolivian law enforcement.

Chile and Bolivia have maintained a longstanding border dispute over the so-called Atacama Corridor, which would give the landlocked Bolivia access to the Pacific Ocean. The issue is currently being litigated before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Telesur recalled. The two countries already clashed earlier this month when Chilean forces conducted a large-scale military drill near the country's northern border.

During that incident, Bolivian President Evo Morales had accused the Chilean government of staging the war games to make an impression on Chile's neighbors, according to El Comercio.

"Maybe some conservative groups in Chile still think that, with this kind of exercises of the armed forces, they are going to intimidate Peru [and] Bolivia," Morales said at the time. "They are wrong. With this kind of action, they only damage the dignity of the Chilean people."