MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Twice on three days Cristina K insists with Falklands' talks

Since taking office last Monday, the administration of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina's first elected woman president, on two occasions reiterated its claim over the Falkland Islands and called on the United Kingdom to abandon its policy of no dialogue and resume sovereignty talks.

This Wednesday Bob Blizzard, UK government special envoy to the taking swearing in ceremony of Mrs. Kirchner, was invited to meet with Deputy Foreign Affairs minister Roberto García Moritán and address several issues of the bilateral agenda with UK, particularly "sovereignty talks on the Malvinas, Georgias del Sur and Sandwich del Sur islands and the surrounding maritime spaces", according to an official release from the Argentine ministry. Blizzard, MP for Waveney, north Suffolk and considered an important figure in the Labor Party structure praised Mrs. Kirchner's inaugural speech to Congress and the ceremony, organization and festivities that followed her first day as president. García Moritán pressed on MP Blizzard Argentina's claims over the South Atlantic and the need to resume sovereignty talks as mandated by the United Nations. Blizzard went to the meeting at the Argentine Foreign Office with British ambassador John Hughes. According to the release Blizzard said he was impressed with Argentina's political stability and democratic process as well as economic prospects. Mr Blizzard was interested on the "economic and social development of Argentina" as well as the foreign policy of the new administration. The release also underlines that Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana specifically instructed his Deputy to have talks with the UK government special representative. On Monday during her inaugural speech President Cristina Kirchner called on the "occupying country which in international forums plays as advanced and respectful that here (in Argentina) we still have a colonial enclave". Without mentioning the United Kingdom once, Cristina Kirchner insisted that the colonial enclave situation of Malvinas has been repeatedly denounced before the United Nations "and it's time to comply with the mandate of the United Nations to which we all belong (Argentina and the UK)". In related news the media both in Buenos Aires and Montevideo displayed headlines on HMS Nottingham which at last moment had its authorization to visit Uruguay to resupply cancelled, following on a request from the Argentine embassy in Montevideo. Her four day high profile visit was scheduled to begin Monday December 10 when Mrs. Kirchner was taking office in Buenos Aires.