Argentina has again asked the UK to restart negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, the Argentine Foreign Ministry has said.
Argentina has continued to lay territorial claims to the British-run islands in the South Atlantic, over which the two countries fought a war in 1982, costing hundreds of lives.
Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero “formulated a proposal to restart negotiations for sovereignty over the Falklands Question” in a meeting with his British counterpart James Cleverly during the G20 summit in India, the Foreign Ministry said on March 2.
Cafiero said the Argentine government is ending the 2016 agreement which pledged “to improve cooperation on South Atlantic issues of mutual interests.”
The Argentine government also invited the UK to “hold a meeting to settle” the debate at the United Nations.
UK ministers have expressed disappointment at Argentina’s decision to tear up the cooperation agreement and push for fresh talks on sovereignty.
Cleverly, the British foreign minister, responded on Twitter: “The Falkland Islands are British. Islanders have the right to decide their own future—they have chosen to remain a self-governing UK Overseas Territory.”
David Rutley, Foreign Office minister for the Americas, said it was “a disappointing decision” after he had had a “constructive visit” to Buenos Aires.
Costly Conflict
Argentina has long claimed sovereignty over the islands it calls Las Malvinas.Argentine forces invaded the Falklands on April 2, 1982, prompting a war that lasted for 74 days.
A taskforce set sail from the UK three days after the invasion, eventually involving almost 26,000 armed forces personnel and 3,000 civilian crew.
Several weeks of intense fighting followed and Argentine forces surrendered on June 14, 1982, a date that has since been known in the Falkland Islands as Liberation Day and is a national holiday.
A total of 649 Argentine military personnel died, as well as 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders.
A 2013 referendum on the islands—with a turnout of over 90 percent—resulted in a 99.8 percent vote to remain British.
China Backs Argentina
But Argentina has recently been raising its voice again on the sovereignty issue with support from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime.The current Argentine president Alberto Fernandez promised to strengthen Argentina’s claims over the Falklands when he took office in 2019.
When Fernandez met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the fringes of the Beijing winter Olympics in February 2022, the two countries signed an agreement in which China reasserted its support for Argentina’s claim to the Falklands, while Fernandez backed Xi’s one-China policy, which claims Taiwan as its own.
According to a statement on London’s Chinese Embassy website, Xi agreed that Argentina should be able to “fully exercise its sovereignty over the Malvinas (Falklands) Islands issue.”
The two leaders spoke of their “deep friendship” and Argentina signed up to China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, a state-backed campaign for global influence.
‘Legacy of Colonialism’
The Chinese regime has been supporting the Argentine claim in the United Nations by using the “decolonization” narrative.In June 2021, Geng Shuang, China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said “the question of the Malvinas Islands” is “essentially a legacy of colonialism.”
He said China “firmly supports Argentina’s sovereignty claim on the Malvinas Islands.”
“We hope Britain will actively respond to Argentina’s request, start dialogue and negotiations as soon as possible with a view to finding a peaceful, just, and lasting solution in accordance with relevant U.N. resolutions.”
Sun Qi, a Chinese international relations expert, revealed that Geng’s U.N. statement was hitting back at Britain for its support of human rights and freedom of the seas.
Sovereignty ‘Not in Question’
The British government has repeatedly rejected Argentina’s territorial claims.At the G7 summit in Germany in June 2022, Britain’s then-prime minister Boris Johnson told Fernandez that the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands is “not in question.”
According to Downing Street, when Fernandez raised the Falklands issue, Johnson was “firm that their sovereignty is not in question” and “stressed that the Falkland Islanders, like all people, have a right to self-determination.”
Giving his own account of the conversation later, Johnson said: “I made the point that we were spending a lot of our time talking about Ukraine, where the principle at stake was the right of sovereign, independent people to determine their future.
“That was the principle that was at stake in the Falklands. It had been decided decisively over many, many, many years and I still see no reason for us to engage in a substantive discussion about it.”
He added: “I just said that it had been 40 years ago since the UK had at a cost of the sacrifice of many lives vindicated the principle that the Falkland Islanders should have the right to determine their future under basic democratic principles and had the right to be British.
“That as far as I was concerned was the end of the matter.”
