MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peruvian group in support and solidarity with Argentine Falklands/Malvinas Islands

Argentine ambassador in Lima, Dario D’Alessandro

Peruvian diplomats, jurists and academia presented the Argentine ambassador in Lima Dario D’Alessandro a document formalizing the Peruvian Group in Support and Solidarity with Argentine Sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands

The expulsion of the Argentine population established in Malvinas in 1833 “has not been indifferent to Peruvians and we have expressed our solidarity with the Argentine people in different moments of history, always in consonance with the principles of respect for territorial integrity of States, non intervention and overcoming colonial situations” reads the document.

The signatories of the document point out that Peruvian foreign policy “has consistently and permanently expressed and expresses a wide and solid support” to the legitimate rights of Argentina over the austral Islands and in overcoming the colonial vestige in the framework of obligations born out of the United Nations charter.

The Peruvian support group has as main purpose to promote academic, cultural, political and media initiatives that contribute to visualize and extend Argentine sovereign rights over the Falklands/Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and adjoining maritime spaces, said a release on the event from the Argentine embassy in Lima.

The group will emphasize the generation of events that promote the abidance of UN resolutions, particularly those that refer to Latinamerica’s permanent interest for the UK to begin negotiations with Argentina for a peaceful and definitive solution to the Malvinas and other South Atlantic islands dispute.

Among those signing the document are former Peruvian Foreign Affairs ministers Manuel Rodriguez Cuadros and Diego Garcia Sayan; the Vice-president from the Andean parliament Alberto Adrianzen; member of Congress Victor Garcia Belaunde and the Dean from the Catholic University Marcial Rubio.

South American history shows Peru has been a traditional ally of Argentina. With pending border disputes, the enemy of my enemy, is my friend: with Chile in dispute with Argentina and Peru, it is only natural they should be allies.

Furthermore Peru during the Faklands conflict not only worked strongly for negotiations following the invasion and before the Task Force arrived, but when full fledge fighting started the Peruvian government supplied Argentina with aircraft and munitions and even attempted to deliver the few Exocet missiles from its own Air Force.

During her first mandate President Cristina Fernandez travelled to Peru to specifically thank Peruvians for their support during the 1982 conflict. However she also apologized for the sale of weapons to Ecuador by the government of President Carlos Menem, during a short lived Peru-Ecuador war in the mid nineties.