MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Young argentine politicians on fact-finding mission.

The four young Argentine politicians who begin a weeklong visit to the islands later this week say they look forward “to meeting as many islanders as we can, exchanging views with them and getting a first hand impression about life on the islands these days”.

Speaking to Mercopress as they were making their last minute preparations for this trip Hernán Corach and Bruno Tomaselli explained that this visit is partly fact finding and it will "help us try to understand what the islands are really like and how islanders see their present and future".

"Although the possibility of visiting the islands has now been open to Argentine citizens for over a year only one hundred fellow citizens have visited the islands in this last 12 months" explains Corach, a 33 year lawyer who is the head of the influential Justicialist (Peronist) Youth movement of Argentina's main opposition party.

"During our stay our main aim is to meet islanders and give islanders the chance to meet us and exchange views" he adds.

Despite the relative youth of the delegation all four members pack considerable political experience, Corach being both a politician in his own right and the son of veteran Peronist leader and now Senator Carlos Corach who was for many years President Carlos Menem's Interior Minister.

Like Corach, Tomaselli is a lawyer who comes from Buenos Aires and is a Peronist Party youth leader.

The other two members of the delegation, Juan Abdo from La Pampa and Mirta Lapad from Salta, are also lawyers are have been involved in politics in their provinces for some years, the former as Under Secretary of Press in his province and the latter as an elected representative at her province's constitutional reform assembly.

While in Stanley the visitors will hold meetings with island representatives of the fishing, tourism, education, hydrocarbons departments as well as holding a meeting with Legislative Councillors and visiting Port Howard.

One of the first items on the agenda is a visit on Sunday to the Argentine Cemetery in Darwin and the chance to see some of the sights in and around Stanley.

Both Corach and Tomaselli stress that they are particularly interested in meeting anyone who wishes to exchange views with them adding that they hope to be able to share in some sporting activity with islanders during the visit.

Asked about their expectations before departure Corach said he very much looked forward to this visit to "look into those things which unite us" with young