Argentina expresses ‘discomfort’ with Cameron Falklands visit
RIO DE JANEIRO: Argentina’s foreign minister conveyed her “discomfort” Wednesday to British counterpart David Cameron over his visit this week to the Falkland Islands, a farflung UK territory claimed by the South American nation.
Cameron’s visit Monday was the first in three decades by Britain’s top diplomat to the archipelago at the center of a 1982 British-Argentina war.
Diana Mondino spoke to Cameron on the sidelines of a G20 foreign ministers summit in Rio de Janeiro, the government in Buenos Aires said in a statement.
She expressed “discomfort with his statements and his visit” and “reaffirmed the sovereign rights of the Argentine Republic” to the archipelago, it added.
The islands are called the Islas Malvinas in Argentina.
Britain’s Press Association reported Cameron as saying Britain would “help protect and defend” the islands for as long as they want to be “part of the UK family.”
“And I hope that’s for a very, very long time, possibly forever,” he added.
Argentina’s statement said the ministers “recognized the existence of a disagreement” on the issue.
For its part, the British government spoke in a statement of a “positive” meeting with Mondino during which Cameron “reiterated the UK’s ongoing support for the Falkland Islanders’ right of selfdetermination.”
The pair noted, however, “that this would not prevent cooperation on areas that would be mutually beneficial,” it added.
After the meeting, Cameron wrote on X: “We look forward to embarking on a new era of relations between Argentina and the UK.”
His visit to the islands was dubbed a “provocation” by the governor of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and Southern Atlantic Islands province, which includes the islands on its map.
The Falklands are about 480 kilometers from mainland Argentina, which claims to have inherited them from Spain when it gained independence.
Britain insists it has historically ruled the Falklands and notes that islanders voted 99.8 per cent in favor of remaining British in a 2013 referendum.
A conflict over the territory in 1982 claimed the lives of 255 British and 649 Argentine soldiers and three islanders.
Argentina’s new president Javier Milei – who met Cameron at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month – has said he hopes to recover the islands diplomatically.
The last UK cabinet minister to visit was defense secretary Michael Fallon in 2016, while Douglas Hurd was the last foreign secretary to head there, in 1994.