Haiti de­clined Thurs­day to join neigh­bor­ing Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in re­open­ing a key com­mer­cial bor­der cross­ing, leav­ing some trade at a stand­still and pro­long­ing a diplo­mat­ic cri­sis over the con­struc­tion of a canal on Hait­ian soil.

Do­mini­can Pres­i­dent Luis Abi­nad­er had closed all bor­ders in­clud­ing the cross­ing at the north­ern Do­mini­can city of Da­jabon for near­ly a month to protest the con­struc­tion of the canal, which he says vi­o­lates a treaty and will take wa­ter need­ed by Do­mini­can farm­ers. Haiti says it has the right to build the canal and that it’s ur­gent­ly need­ed be­cause of a drought.

Abi­nad­er’s gov­ern­ment par­tial­ly re­opened the bor­ders on Wednes­day in­clud­ing the one at Da­jabon — home to a key mar­ket for com­merce be­tween the coun­tries — but al­lowed on­ly lim­it­ed trade and kept a ban on Haitians en­ter­ing the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic for work, school, tourism or med­ical is­sues. He al­so kept a ban on is­su­ing visas to Hait­ian cit­i­zens.

Haiti de­clined to fol­low suit at its gate in the near­by com­mu­ni­ty of Oua­naminthe, and its gov­ern­ment did not im­me­di­ate­ly state a rea­son. But Moïse Charles Pierre, a del­e­gate for Haiti’s north­east re­gion, told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that the Do­mini­can side need­ed to apol­o­gize and re­sume full bor­der op­er­a­tions.

“Abi­nad­er needs to re­spect the Hait­ian peo­ple and apol­o­gize pub­licly,” Pierre said.

Mean­while, the two oth­er bor­der gates at Elias Pina and In­de­pen­den­cia have opened on both sides.

The spat over the canal took cen­ter stage Thurs­day at an Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States meet­ing in Wash­ing­ton, with sharp ex­changes be­tween Rober­to Ál­varez, for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter for the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and Léon Charles, Haiti’s per­ma­nent rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the OAS.

“The con­struc­tion of the canal is not go­ing to stop,” Charles said, adding that Haiti was still open to di­a­logue but not “un­der the threat of dic­tat­ing a so­lu­tion to the Hait­ian pop­u­la­tion.”

In re­sponse, Ál­varez un­earthed cen­turies-old his­to­ry by men­tion­ing Haiti’s 22-year oc­cu­pa­tion of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in the 1800s and said the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic was not tak­ing up arms over the canal dis­pute.

“We are not in­tim­i­dat­ing any­one. Our in­ten­tion is to pro­tect our bor­der, our nat­ur­al re­sources,” he said, as he crit­i­cized Charles’s re­sponse as “a reck­less po­si­tion.”

The canal in Haiti aims to di­vert wa­ter from the Mas­sacre Riv­er that runs along the bor­der on the is­land of His­pan­io­la that both coun­tries share. Haiti’s gov­ern­ment has said farm­ers ur­gent­ly need the wa­ter to quench a drought that has killed crops in the re­gion.

Abi­nad­er has said that con­struc­tion of the canal vi­o­lates a 1929 treaty and would af­fect lo­cal farm­ers and near­by wet­lands.

On Thurs­day, for­mer Hait­ian prime min­is­ter and pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Claude Joseph is­sued a state­ment re­ject­ing al­le­ga­tions by a Do­mini­can am­bas­sador that he had or­dered work on the canal in or­der to pro­voke a cri­sis with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

How­ev­er, Jospeh in­sist­ed that Haiti has the right to build the canal.

Since Wednes­day’s par­tial re­open­ing at Da­jabon and oth­er bor­der cities, ven­dors on the Do­mini­can side are lim­it­ed to sell­ing goods like food and med­i­cine and are barred from sell­ing con­struc­tion items such as con­crete and met­al rods. Do­mini­can of­fi­cials main­tain that sale of such items would aid con­struc­tion of the near­by canal.

Pierre, the Hait­ian of­fi­cial, said that in ad­di­tion to keep­ing the bor­der closed, au­thor­i­ties are work­ing on a plan that would al­low Hait­ian ven­dors to re­cov­er their wares stuck in the Da­jabon mar­ket­place since the clo­sure.

On Wednes­day, a pre-dawn fire erupt­ed at the mar­ket­place in Da­jabon, with 26 of 28 stalls de­stroyed be­long­ing to Haitians, ac­cord­ing to Da­jabon May­or San­ti­a­go Riverón. Au­thor­i­ties are in­ves­ti­gat­ing what caused the fire.

Mean­while, Riverón said he met with Haiti’s con­sul in Da­jabon and ex­pect­ed to meet lat­er with the Hait­ian may­or of Oua­naminthe to talk about the fire and the bor­der re­open­ing.

SAN JUAN, Puer­to Ri­co (AP)