Argentina wants to negotiate again with the British about Falklands after leaked Pentagon email | News

The Argentine government said on Friday that it wanted to renegotiate with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands. The archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, called the Malvinas in Argentina, is British territory, but the Argentinians have claimed control over the area since the nineteenth century.

“The Argentine Republic reiterates its willingness to resume bilateral negotiations with the United Kingdom so that a peaceful and definitive solution to the sovereignty dispute can be found and an end to the special colonial situation in which they find themselves,” Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said in an extensive statement on Friday. message on Xin which he also outlines what he considers to be the historical context of Argentina’s claim to the islands.

Quirno’s words were prompted by a leaked internal Pentagon email that the Reuters news agency published on Friday. The email suggests that US diplomatic support for longstanding European ‘imperial possessions’ such as the Falklands should be reviewed as punishment for the lack of British support in the war with Iran. The spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer then stated that sovereignty over the Falkland Islands lies with Great Britain.

That is unacceptable for the ordinary Argentinian. Although very few Argentinians visited the islands, they are an integral part of the South American country’s streets.

Numerous buildings, streets and squares are named after the Malvinas. There is a real Malvinas museum in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires and the islands are also depicted on the banknotes. Football stadiums are also full of flags and banners that refer to the islands.

Argentine President Javier Milei, an ally of Trump, is also a strong supporter of Argentine sovereignty over the Falklands. “We are doing everything humanly possible to get the Argentine Malvinas, the entire area, back into the hands of Argentina. We are making progress like never before,” he said in a radio interview.

At X on Friday, Milei was considerably more fierce in tone. “The Malvinas were, are and always will be Argentinian,” he wrote in one repost of the message from his foreign minister, followed by his regular bouncer VLLC (Viva La Libertad, Carajo!), which stands for – loosely translated – ‘Long live freedom, damn it!’

However, the Argentine president, like his other democratic predecessors, has always ruled out gaining sovereignty over the archipelago through military deployment, as was attempted in 1982.

Then Argentina, which was ruled by a military junta at the time, tried in vain to take the islands, after which Britain and Argentina fought a short but fierce war over the area. 649 Argentine soldiers and 255 British soldiers were killed before Argentina surrendered.

That same year, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution calling on the countries to resolve the dispute over the sovereignty and decolonization of the islands peacefully.

The British took possession of the islands in the 1830s and have ruled the Falklands ever since. Argentina claims sovereignty over what it calls ‘Las Malvinas’ because it allegedly ‘inherited’ the islands from Spain after independence in 1816. According to Argentina, the British occupation in 1833, which expelled the Argentines from the islands, was an illegal colonial act.

The Falkland Islands are located approximately 500 kilometers east of the Argentine mainland and approximately 13,000 kilometers from Great Britain. They consist of two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, and 778 smaller islands. It is home to approximately 3,660 people, mainly of British descent, although there are also people from St Helena, Chile and the Philippines. The economy is mainly based on fishing licenses, agriculture and tourism.

The US “reaffirmed its neutral stance” on the sovereignty dispute on Friday, according to a spokesperson for the US State Department. “We recognize that there are conflicting sovereignty claims between Argentina and the United Kingdom,” the spokesperson said, adding that the US recognizes the “de facto administration by the United Kingdom” of the archipelago without taking sides in the sovereignty dispute.