MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina backs Uruguay trade delegation to Falklands: “we’re not for the blockade”

Ambassador Dovena, “it makes us happy that the Islanders can live better with the help of Uruguayan trade people”

The Argentine government sees with good eyes that a Uruguayan trade delegation travelled to the Falklands/Malvinas in spite of the ‘dialectic conflict’ with the UK over the sovereignty of the Islands, said the Argentine ambassador in Montevideo, Dante Dovena.

“We see it with good eyes; we don’t want to affect the lives of the Islanders, on the contrary. We have no pre-disposition towards the Islanders, and we don’t want to establish any blockade of any kind”, said Dovena speaking to the Montevideo media.

A delegation of 19 business representatives visited the Falklands/Malvinas for a week (they return on Saturday) with the purpose of establishing trade in several areas such as fresh fruit and vegetables, --limited in the Islands because of Argentina’s latest decisions--, wool, animal genetics, fertilizers, among others.

“That a group of business people travel to the Islands to try and fathom business possibilities do not worry us at all. On the contrary it makes us happy that the Islanders can live better with the help of Uruguayan trade people”, said Dovena.

He went on to say that “it’s a question of not committing the kind of mistakes that other countries practice with Cuba. That affects the lives of Islanders and this we don’t want” underlined the Argentine ambassador.

“In what we don’t agree is that natural resources, live marine resources and the oil and gas resources that might exist are exploited and extracted to be managed by the English or whatever nationality”.

Likewise Dovena said that this Friday the Embassy would be launching the “Malvinas Forum in Uruguay” with the specific purpose of supporting Argentina’s claim over the South Atlantic islands, for which “a significant number of Uruguayan personalities have adhered and will actively support the Argentine claim”.

The event will take place in the Atlantic resort of Punta del Este and “we want the forum to be sponsored and conducted by Uruguayans”, said an embassy release, indicating it will be a space for debate, analysis and generation of all kinds of contents on the Malvinas cause and will have among its members personalities from the political, academic, cultural and business spheres.

“The forum is open to all political positions and expects to consolidate as a reference in the awareness of the political, legal, historic and environmental implications of this Latin American cause”

Working under the principle that international negotiations are the only possible way for a peaceful solution to the existing colonial situation the Forum “will address current information and historic background to elaborate different publications which suggest new perspectives and lines of action to broadcast the Malvinas question to the whole country”.

Finally, “179 years since the illegitimate British occupation” of the Malvinas Islands and 30 years since the “war adventure initiated by the Argentine military dictatorship that repressed the Argentine people from 1976 to 1983” the creation of the Malvinas Forum in Uruguay is a historic milestone which reflects the deep solidarity and integration which has been achieved by Argentina and Uruguay.