‘It’s not encouraging’
Here’s what was making The News as the talks continued to try to avert war in the Falklands.
Argentinereply‘discouraging’; ‘big gap’ depresses Thatcher
Mrs Margaret Thatcher today described the Argentine reply to the latest UN peace proposals as ‘not very encouraging’.
‘The gap looks big,’ the Prime Minister said in an interview on Jimmy Young’s BBC radio programme. But she said she had only seen an outline of the reply, delivered early today to the UN Secretary-General and it still had yet to be considered in detail.
‘But we in Britain stand for certain things. Our people there are now being denied the freedoms which are their heritage. We also stand for international law.
‘We will try to uphold it still by peaceful settlement. We can’t do that if the Argentinians are not prepared to agree. If they are not, the responsibility for anything else must be theirs.
‘We haven’t actually had the full reply yet - just a preliminary indication from our ambassador in New York, but from the indications that were given to him I’m afraid it doesn’t look very encouraging.’
Mrs Thatcher was speaking after a meeting of the Inner Cabinet which demanded a swift final response by the Argentine junta to the proposals. The Junta’s final response is awaited.