By Maria Luisa Palomino TUMBES, Peru, June 1 (Reuters) - Peru and Ecuador, which have a long and turbulent history of border disputes over territory in the Amazon basin, said on Friday they were now at peace and that their relations have never been better. "Emphatically, we declare before the world that we have no territorial or maritime claim to make with Ecuador," Peruvian President Alan Garcia said at the start of a one-day summit between the two governments in the northern city of Tumbes, 16 miles (25 km) from the Ecuadorean border. "We have a frontier of peace," he added. His Ecuadorean counterpart Rafael Correa said the Andean neighbors would not allow themselves to be used as "a test tube" in which troublemakers could seek to kindle divisions. "We have the best relationship in the history of the two countries and it is our duty to make them even better," he said. The countries' fraught past dates virtually from their birth as independent republics in the early 19th century and tensions have erupted into war several times -- most recently in 1995 when a 22-day conflict claimed 60 lives. Peru and Ecuador signed a peace deal in 1998 and the following year a border cooperation agreement that is due to expire in 2009. Correa said the two presidents would extend the agreement by 10 years during Friday's meeting in Tumbes, a steamy coastal city 1,320 km from the Peruvian capital Lima. The two countries were also expected to agree on a deal on crude oil exports from Ecuador to Peru. Peru imports around 30,000 barrels of crude per day from various sources, often paying intermediaries in the process. It hopes the deal with Ecuador, South America's fifth largest oil producer, will allow it to cut out the intermediaries. The presidents were expected to discuss a possible free trade agreement between the Andean Community and the European Union. Peru and Ecuador are members of the Andean bloc along with Bolivia and Colombia. Garcia said on Thursday if talks on a deal stall due to intransigence among other members of the bloc, Peru might seek a deal of its own with the European Union. The Peruvian leader, a moderate leftist, is seeking a similar deal with the United States, in contrast to the more hard-line Correa, who has ruled one out.
