MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Next -of- Kin visits resumed.

After over two years interruption visits to the Falkland Islands by Argentine relatives of servicemen killed during the 1982 South Atlantic War resumed this week.

A group of 21 relatives of soldiers, sailors and airmen killed during the conflict arrived at the Mount Pleasant airbase on Saturday on the Lan Chile flight from Rio Gallegos accompanied by a Catholic priest and a translator.

The visit, which includes parents, brothers and sisters of Argentine servicemen killed in the conflict, was co-ordinated by the recently reactivated National Commission of Veterans.

The relatives, who come from Buenos Aires, Cordoba, San Juan and San Luis, were seen off by President Eduardo Duhalde at the Olivos Presidential Residence and are scheduled to have breakfast with the caretaker head of state on return.

The next of kin visits to the Argentine Cemetery in Darwin were carried out regularly in the 1990s until halted for strictly political reasons by the ill-fated government of President Fernando De la Rua and later by the economic crisis.

A second - yet unconfirmed - visit is being organised for early April.

Nicholas Tozer - Buenos Aires