MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“There is no such thing as Falkland Islanders: they are British citizens in disputed islands”

The Argentine minister keeps making friends in the South Atlantic

There is no such thing as Falkland Islanders, the Argentine Foreign minister Hector Timerman insisted during a press conference in London on Wednesday, claiming they are British citizens living in disputed islands. He claimed the United Nations only acknowledges two parties in the territorial dispute: UK and Argentina.

“The Falkland Islanders do not exist. What exist is British citizens who live in the Islas Malvinas. ”The United Nations does not recognize a third party in the conflict. It says there are just two parts: the UK and Argentina.“

He added that ”everybody“ in Argentina still felt the ”effects of the 1833 invasion“ of the South Atlantic when colonial Britain “forcibly usurped the Islands” from Argentina and shipped the population away.

Timerman also lashed out as his British counterpart William Hague for scuppering a proposed meeting at the Foreign Office by insisting representatives of the Falklands Islands attend if the issue to address referred to the disputed Islands.

His latest comments come a day after he told MPs that Buenos Aires would not recognize the result of a referendum of the Islanders next month on whether they wish to remain part of the British overseas territories.

He also said that the Falklands would be under Argentine control within 20 years, while denouncing the British as ”fanatics” and comparing the British claim to Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

“I don’t think it will take another 20 years. I think that the world is going through a process of understanding more and more that this is a colonial issue, an issue of colonialism,” he said.

“We don’t support the occupation of foreign lands, and the Malvinas case is the occupation of a foreign land.”

Earlier in the day during the opening of a conference in the Argentine embassy with the 18 European Groups Pro-dialogue on the Malvinas question, Timerman assured that the Malvinas sovereignty debate “is not just another case of colonialism but a situation that tests the entire international justice system.”

“It is unacceptable to have States that ignore all United Nations resolutions just because of their military power and their membership to the club of the most powerful nations”.

Timerman underlined the “unbelievable burst of strength that one feels when so many people from around the world tells one to perfectly understand the Malvinas situation”, Timerman told reporters. Likewise he added that “there are 95 groups from 80 countries that have already expressed their solidarity to Argentina”.