MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK-Argentina relation “quite good” but for the Falklands

Lord Malloch-Brown

Relations between Britain and Argentina are “quite good” with the sole exception of the issue that is always on the table, the Falkland Islands, said Lord Mark Malloch-Brown who last week visited Buenos Aires for a few hours to coordinate the coming G-20 summit to be held in London, early April, hosted by PM Gordon Brown.

Lord Malloch-Brown who is described by the Buenos Aires press as a very close aide to PM Brown, thus his nomination as responsible for the organization of G20 summit which will bring together world leaders including US President Barrack Obama, and the three presidents from Latinamerica's largest economies, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. PM Brown's envoy also revealed that there have been advances in talks with Argentine Foreign Affairs Jorge Taiana for a next of kin group visit to the Argentine cemetery at Darwin, which has been remodelled but remains non officially inaugurated. "Believe me nobody in the British government is pleased with the Falklands issue on the table making noises to the relation with Argentina", Lord Malloch-Brown is quoted by the Buenos Aires daily Clarin which has significantly improved its relations with the Kirchners' administrations. Lord Mulloch-Brown admitted that in the current global crisis Argentina and the United Kingdom's positions have become much closer because of the coincidence in the urgent need to reform the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, "since as they are functioning today they don't have conditions to make a contribution to the global crisis solution". One of the radical changes apparently is abandoning the current "conditionality" scheme which both IMF and WB impose on countries to release loans and which Argentina has recurrently denounced and protested. PM Brown's envoy describes the current global situation as "dramatic", because of the deepening world recession and for example the fact that in China, "20 million workers on the return from holidays discovered their factories had closed down". However he is more optimistic compared to the first G20 in Washington because then the US president (Bush) was outgoing and the crisis was believed to be only limnited to the financial area. Now the crisis has extended to the real economy and the global slowdown is going to have a huge impact on developing nations dependent on exports, so there's a better picture of the situation and "we are all looking to see how the Obama administration performs in the coming months". Finally he said trade and protectionism are the greatest challenges ahead. All counties and leaders in world forums support free trade, open markets but when it comes to domestic stimulus policies the contradictions emerge between those messages and reality.