MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Despite invitation Argentine ambassador will not attend Lady Thatcher’s funeral

The Foreign Office excluded Cristina Fernandez from the guests’ list but included Ambassador Alicia Castro

Argentine ambassador to the UK Alicia Castro has declined the official invitation to attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, Downing Street reported. Lady Thatcher was Britain’s PM when the Argentine invasion of the Falklands and she sent a task force to successfully recover them in June 1982 after a 74-day armed conflict.

According to a spokesman of PM David Cameron, no Argentine officials will attend the ceremony that will take place at St. Paul's Cathedral on Wednesday.

When the list of guests to the funeral services was announced last week, London explicitly stressed that President Cristina Fernández was not invited to the event (on request from the Thatcher family), but extended the invitation as diplomatic protocol indicates to Ms. Castro.

On Tuesday Prime Minister David Cameron spokesperson was asked to explain the rationale for the Argentine ambassador declining to attend, to which the reply was “that is a matter for the Argentines”.

From Buenos Aires Argentine officials were ironic about the ‘half invitation’ which left out the president but not the ambassador.

“Who cares if you are invited to a place where you already did not plan to go” Argentine Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman told local reporters playing down UK position and ratifying Argentina’s long-standing sovereignty claims over the South Atlantic territories.

In effect this week the Argentine Foreign Ministry denounced that the UK “will conduct new military exercises on occupied Argentine territory between today and the 26 of April” including a missile launch from the Falklands/Malvinas Islands, and said that it would send a protest letter to the British government.

“The Argentine Foreign Ministry has learned that the UK government will conduct new military exercises on occupied Argentine soil, including a missile launch from the Malvinas Islands,” the office said.

“The Argentine Government has communicated its most formal and strongest protest regarding the military exercises demanding the UK to refrain from conducting them,” it added