MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

For Argentina Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty legitimacy conditions any other negotiation

Minister Puricelli: “we want the Islanders to establish mainland links with Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, which is the province to which they belong”.

Argentina is not going to make things easy for Britain in the Falkland Islands and the first discussion, before any other issues are addressed, must be the legitimacy of the Malvinas Islands sovereignty, said Argentine Defence Minister Arturo Puricelli in a Sunday interview by Carolina Barrios published in the Buenos Aires Herald.

“What we are not going to do is to make British occupation of the Islands any easier,” said Puricelli emphasizing that “we do not want to negotiate with London over issues which might suit Britain without first discussing the legitimacy of Malvinas sovereignty”.

Puricelli said Argentina has geographical, historical, political and legal arguments placing Malvinas, Georgia and Sandwich Islands and the adjoining waters “unquestionably under Argentine sovereignty”.

Furthermore “we want the Islanders to establish mainland links with Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, which is the province to which they belong”.

The Defence minister went on to say that Argentina is inclined to respect the culture, lifestyle and language of the Islands population “but we want them to come out of their isolation and occupation and recognize the legitimate sovereignty of Argentina and not the occupation imposed by a country 14,000 kilometres away like the United Kingdom”.

Ms Barros then asks the minister if this means that unless there are advances in the sovereignty issue, it will not be possible to broach other issues such as fisheries, something achieved in the 90s but now interrupted?

“It was Britain which interrupted those conversations and exchange of information — they did not do their bit” said Puricelli.

So is there any common ground?

“Both Britain and Argentina are countries which recognize and have certain international values in common which we share in, for example, bodies like the United Nations — that is exactly where we should be taking these issues” underlined the Defence minister.

Ms Barros describes Puricelli as a Patagonian through and through — a lawyer and a skilful politician; he was the first governor of Santa Cruz, the province of Néstor Kirchner, from 1983 to 1987 following the return of democracy in Argentina. For years he confronted Kirchner (who began his career as mayor of the provincial capital Río Gallegos as from 1987) but it was precisely over an international issue — the demarcation dispute with Chile over the Continental ice-shelf — that he drew closer to Cristina (then in the Senate) and Néstor (governor as from 1991) and it was then he became a “penguin,” as they call those from Santa Cruz who back the Kirchners.

It was perhaps this relationship of confidence which prompted Cristina to make him defence minister last December (when the Villa Soldati squatter crisis caused her to move then minister Nilda Garré into the newly created Home Security Ministry and promote Puricelli from the helm of the Fabricaciones Militares munitions plant which had already given him some experience of “thorny” military and armament issues.

Puricelli also referred to the support extended by the rest of Latin American countries to Argentina’s sovereignty claims over the Falklands and the region’s rejection of an extra-continental presence.

“The military presence of any extra-continental power is against South American interests. The British military presence on Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich is a cause of grave concern for Argentina”.

Puricelli thinks that the South American region should be “exactly as defined by the Unasur presidents — a peace zone, and to guarantee that we must stand together without any (external) interference”.

“Allowing the entry of third parties to intrude their political and economic opinions in the region is the spark for importing outside conflicts which do not do anybody any good and will surely lead us in the worst direction” Puricelli told the Buenos Aires Herald.

“We want the United Kingdom to review its position, sit down to negotiate and stop militarizing the South Atlantic” said the defence minister, pointing out that “London would have to sit down and talk to Argentina but first of all, it would have to start with the sovereignty of the islands and their occupation by force; on that basis we can talk about anything”.