The The national government expressed on Monday its “strong rejection” of carrying out new military maneuvers in the Malvinas Islands by the United Kingdom, which, he considered, constitutes “an unjustified show of force” in “illegitimately occupied” Argentine territory and a “deliberate departure from the calls of numerous UN resolutions and other international organizations.”
In a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, the Executive expressed a new protest for the British military exercises in the archipelago, which will take place from this Monday until April 29.
“The Argentine Republic rejects in the strongest terms the carrying out of these military maneuvers in illegitimately occupied Argentine territory,” the San Martin Palace said in a statement.
The official document further indicates thatThe new military exercises “constitute an unwarranted show of force and a deliberate departure from the calls of the numerous resolutions of the United Nations and other international organizations, that urge both Argentina and the United Kingdom to resume negotiations, in order to find a peaceful and definitive solution to the sovereignty dispute that involves both countries in the Question of the Malvinas Islands”.
“The Argentine Government has learned that between April 18 and 29, the United Kingdom is carrying out, once again, military exercises in the Malvinas Islands, involving, among others, British forces stationed in the Malvinas Islands, belonging to the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment,” the statement said.
According to official information, also will participate in the maneuvers “the illegitimate Defense Force of the Islands, in conjunction with forces of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force”which, he details, “are part of the military deployment of the illegal occupation of the United Kingdom in the Malvinas Islands.
According to a statement from the British Military Contingent in the Falkland Islands (BFSAI), these exercises are being carried out to “demonstrate the ability of BFSAI personnel to coordinate and deploy resources for a large-scale exercise,” says the portfolio he heads. Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero.
The Argentine Republic rejects in the strongest terms the military maneuvers carried out in the Argentine territory illegitimately occupied by the United Kingdom.
?https://t.co/iJ1n79ixsM pic.twitter.com/Lqy4BoQiY0
– Argentine Foreign Ministry ?? (@CancilleriaARG) April 18, 2022
In the statement, the Foreign Ministry stresses that the British military presence on the islands is “categorically opposed to the permanent will of the Argentine Republic to resolve the dispute by peaceful meansin accordance with international law and the relevant resolutions of the United Nations”.
In this sense, it maintains that “in particular, the persistence of the United Kingdom in carrying out military exercises in the South Atlantic specifically contravenes resolution 31/49 of the United Nations General Assembly, which urges both parties (Argentina and the United Kingdom Kingdom) to refrain from adopting unilateral decisions that entail the introduction of modifications in the situation while the Islands are going through the negotiation process recommended by it”.
Likewise, it states that “the military presence also contradicts General Assembly resolution 41/11 (Zone of Peace and Cooperation in the South Atlantic) which, among other provisions, urges the states of all other regions, especially those important militarily states, to scrupulously respect the South Atlantic region as a zone of peace and cooperation, in particular by reducing and eventually eliminating their military presence in that region”.
“The Argentine Government once again reaffirms its sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces that form an integral part of the national territory of the Argentine Republic, which, being illegitimately occupied by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are the object of a sovereignty dispute recognized by the United Nations through resolution 2065 (XX) and subsequent resolutions of the General Assembly, as well as other international organizations and forums,” the official document underlines.
Finally, it indicates that “in accordance with the aforementioned resolutions, The Argentine Government reiterates that this is a sovereignty dispute that must be resolved bilaterally between the two countries, and reaffirms its readiness to resume negotiations”.
claims
Argentina has been claiming for a long time and with persistence for the increasingly accentuated British military presence in the South Atlantic: the last one was in July 2021, when the Alberto Fernández administration sent the Boris Johnson government a forceful note of protest for carrying out military maneuvers through the so-called Cape Bayonet exercise.
Last February, Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero demanded before the Conference on Disarmament at the headquarters of the United Nations Organization in the city of Geneva, that the United Kingdom give precise information on the nuclear material that “transported to the South Atlantic in 1982” , in the framework of the Malvinas war, as well as about “what was the fate that gave him”.
On that occasion, Cafiero stated that, “In addition to being a significant amount, the mere presence of these weapons implied, not only for Argentina but for the entire region, a serious nuclear risk both in terms of radioactive contamination in the South Atlantic, as well as the catastrophic humanitarian consequences associated with nuclear weapons”.
In that presentation, the Argentine foreign minister made reference to recently declassified documents in the National Archives in London “which prove that, during the 1982 South Atlantic conflict, the United Kingdom sent ships to the region equipped with 31 nuclear weapons, which represented at that time 65 percent of its stock of deep-sea nuclear bombs”.
The new movements of British forces that are carried out in the archipelago until the 29th of this month also obtained in the last hours the repudiation of the Malvinas Advisory Council which described them as part of a “colonial anachronism”, a “provocation” and an “act of contempt” towards Argentina.
“The occupation forces that Great Britain illegally maintains in Argentine territory, turning the Malvinas Islands into one of the most militarized territories in the world, are once again preparing to carry out military exercises in the area,” the Council denounced in a statement. the Malvinas Question Observatory Advisory Council, dependent on the province of Tierra del Fuego
There it is recalled that this new military deployment by the United Kingdom is added to other “armed exercises already carried out” in the area and thus constitute a “provocation” and an “act of contempt” towards the Argentine Republic.
The governor of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands, Gustavo Melella, had spoken on this subject on Saturday through his Twitter account, where he questioned the British ambassador to Argentina, Kirsty Hayes.
“On behalf of the Fuegians, I express my deepest repudiation regarding the military maneuvers that your country is carrying out in our Malvinas Islands and surroundings,” said the Fuegian president.
Melella referred to the failure to comply with resolution 31/49 of the UN General Assembly and also agreed to describe the maneuver as “an unnecessary provocation” carried out “on such sensitive and special dates for the Argentine people,” referring to the 40 anniversary of the Falklands War.
“An action by the government that you represent that, repeatedly, together with its military allies, only brings insecurity and uncertainty to a region that seeks to ensure peace and cooperation among its member states,” Melella said when addressing the ambassador, and continued: “A region to which your State belongs only by illegally occupying part of our territory.”
