Argentina expressed to the Government of Brazil its “concern” and “surprise” because planes of the United Kingdom Air Force made seven flights between Brazilian territory and the Malvinas Islands, which constitutes an “additional” manifestation of the illegitimate British presence in the South Atlantic, according to a document disclosed this Tuesday to Télam.
The concern was expressed through a letter presented by the Argentine ambassador in Brasilia, Daniel Scioli, before the Brazilian Foreign Ministry.
“The Argentine Government sees with surprise and concern that during the course of the month of January 2022, seven military flights of these characteristics were carried out”says the document presented to the Itamaraty Palace.
According to the Argentine Embassy in Brasilia, seven British military flights have been carried out from Brazil to the Malvinas Islands and from the Malvinas Islands to Brazil so far in 2022.
The detail presented by the document indicates that British military planes landed and took off from the Malvinas in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Porto Alegre and Recife on January 9, 14, 15, 22, 24, 26 and 28.
“These flights constitute a further manifestation of the UK’s illegitimate military presence in the South Atlantic, which has been described by the member states and associates of Mercosur as contrary to the region’s policy of attachment to the search for a peaceful solution to the sovereignty dispute” of the islands, says the claim.
The Argentine Embassy in Brasilia differentiated between humanitarian flights, which it does not oppose, with strictly military ones by the British.
In 2017, during the administration of President Michel Temer, the Porto Alegre newspaper Zero Hora had denounced that the airport in the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul had become a kind of South American “supplier” for Royal Air Force aircraft going to or returning from Great Britain to the Falklands.
According to the official letter sent to the Government of President Jair Bolsonaro, “the political purpose pursued by the alleged “stopovers” of British military aircraft in countries of the region is highlighted, since its continuity over time could be publicized as a sort of Brazilian acceptance of the presence of a military base in the South Atlantic”.
The text indicates that the embassy in charge of Scioli understands as “humanitarian flight” those whose human life is in danger due to illness or accident that requires medical assistance that the Malvinas services cannot provide.
Because, Argentina “will appreciate that the Brazilian Government seeks to restrict the granting of permits for British military aircraft coming from or destined for the Malvinas Islands only in strictly humanitarian cases.”
The embassy also thanked the Brazilian government for its “traditional and constant support for the legitimate Argentine rights over the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces.”
The official letter was presented to the Secretariat of Bilateral and Regional Negotiations of the Americas of the Itamaraty Palace with a copy to the Sea, Antarctica and Space Division, the South America Division and the Europe 1 Division, according to the document.
