MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Falklands Councillor expects no change in Argentine attitudes
“This Argentine Government doesn't seem to be disposed to talking in any common sense fashion about managing our differences”
This was the opinion expressed by Falkland Islands Legislative Council member, Mike Summers, during a recent interview by Stacey Bragger of the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Service (FIRS).
Councillor Summers was responding to the interviewer's suggestion that the example set by the recent tri-partite agreement between Spain, Britain and Gibraltar might promote a change of approach in the current Argentine Government's hard-line attitudes towards the Falkland Islands, which they call the Islas Malvinas and over which they continue to claim sovereignty.
Having recently returned from Gibraltar, where he had been an official guest at that country's National Day celebrations, Councillor Summers said that the tripartite discussions between Spain, UK and Gibraltar, leading to the recent agreement, were rather similar to what had been going on in the Falklands in 1998 and 1999 but had stopped when the Kirchner Government came to power.
Without claiming to be a Gibraltar specialist, Councillor Summers said that he thought the recent agreement would be seen as "a move forward for the Gibraltarians" although some opposition politicians there had been cautious in their acceptance of it.
Summers said that he could not see a similar process being engaged in between Argentina, Britain and the Falklands at the present time. While the Argentinean Government would occasionally claim to be interested in managing the differences and practical issues, which existed in the South-West Atlantic, they would very quickly prove that they were not.
It was interesting, said Summers, that the Argentine Government was now making comment about the position that the Argentine Government has taken in respect of the Falklands and comparing it to what had happened between Britain and Spain. There was in this, he thought, some inherent criticism about the way in which the Kirchner Government was acting.
Councillor Summers said that it would be interesting to see whether the Argentine Government would watch the situation and judge finally that what the Spanish had done was a good way to go, but concluded, "I wouldn't anticipate anything happening very quickly."
John Fowler (Mercopress) Stanley
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