MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine president promises to keep pushing ‘permanently’ for Malvinas

CFK also mentioned Unasur and rebuilt relations with Uruguay

Argentina’s claim of the Malvinas Islands only had a brief specific mention in President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner Tuesday address to Congress where she outlined the achievements of her administration and plans for the remaining nine months of her four year mandate.

However the president clearly spelled out what has been Argentina’s strategy towards the Falklands/Malvinas Islands claim when she promised to continue “constructing permanently” on the case.

Mrs Kirchner underlined the significance for Latinamerica of the Union of South American Nations, Unasur, which becomes legally effective next March 11 and has already been acknowledged as an undisputed respected regional institution, with Argentina having been honoured with the first Secretary General (her deceased husband former President Nestor Kirchner).

To that effect the Argentine president recalled that when she took office in 2007 there was a serious pending dispute with Uruguay (over the construction of pulp mills) which was ‘lacerating’ bilateral relations.

“I remember the floor was full of presidents and I mentioned that we would wait for the ruling from the International Court of The Hague, because we were determined to overcome this bilateral irritating hurdle with Uruguay, and we would do it according to International Law, since the treaties that had been ignored or violated forced us to appeal to this path”, said Mrs. Kirchner.

And now “we can say that the conflict which cast a shadow on relations with our sister Republic of Uruguay (for several years) has been overcome and we must thank efforts from current president, Jose Pepe Mujica in that task step by step, of confidence building between both countries”.

Mrs Kirchner also mentioned a meeting with President Alvaro Uribe following the day of her inauguration December 2007, and talking about hostages held by the Colombian rebels, the Colombian leader was most pessimistic.

“It’s impossible”, the release of hostages “it will never occur whatever we do”, said the Colombian leader. “But I insisted on mobilizations, on surrounding the issue from all possible sides and begin pushing on the issue from all sides in all possible forums, meetings, wherever possible, and now three years later, there are practically no hostages left and there have been significant advances in the field of human rights” pointed out the Argentine president.