MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unasur letter supporting Argentina’s Malvinas claims delivered to Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon meets with Timerman at the United Nations

Foreign Affairs minister Hector Timerman met Wednesday with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and reiterated Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Falklands/Malvinas and other South Atlantic Islands this time reinforced with a formal request from the Union of South American Nations, Unasur leaders in support of Argentina’s “historic and legitimate rights”.

In the document dated April 2 (*), Unasur twelve leaders ratify the “permanent regional interest for the United Kingdom to resume negotiations with Argentina” so that a peaceful and definitive solution to the sovereignty dispute can be found in accordance with statements and resolutions from the Organization of American States and the United Nations.

The letter backs the request with a long list of declarations and communiqués from different Unasur regional events including the 26 November 2010 declaration, in Georgetown, Guyana, referred to shipping movements of vessels on course to the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich islands

The leaders also request Ban Ki-moon to renew efforts in compliance with the good offices mission which was entrusted to the Secretary General by the US General Assembly with the purpose of achieving a peaceful solution to the dispute as soon as possible.

Finally Unasur asks Ban Ki-moon to keep them informed of the advances reached in the compliance of the mission he was entrusted.

In brief comments from New York to the Argentine government official news agency Telam, Timerman said that “Argentine democratic governments have always searched for a peaceful solution to the Malvinas conflict and it is the United Kingdom that systematically refuses to address the Malvinas issue”.

With this attitude London “is giving evidence that the United Nations are only useful when they protect the interests of some powerful countries and when those interests do not coincide with UN decisions, they simply ignore them”.

Timerman arrived in New York from Israel where he underscored the close and historic links between the two countries and denied the existence of any understanding with Iran to boost bilateral trade by downplaying accusations of Teheran’s involvement in terrorist attacks (1992 and 1994) in Buenos Aires. The claims were published in the Sunday edition of Perfil, a respected newspaper usually well informed.

(*) April 2 according to the Argentine calendar is the Malvinas Fallen and Veterans Day, but it is also the day in 1982 when the Argentine military Junta invaded the Falkland Islands. A Task Force sent by the UK put an end to the 74 day occupation on June 14, which the Islanders celebrate as Liberation Day.