MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Malvinas conflict is diplomatic: “unnecessary ostentation of firepower” from UK

Puricelli says “Brits could have saved quite a few thousand pounds”

Argentine Defence minister Arturo Puricelli described UK’s announcement to send state of the art and latest incorporation to the Royal Navy HMS Dauntless, and according to the London press a nuclear powered submersible, to the disputed Falklands/Malvinas Islands as “an unnecessary ostentation of fire power”

“I think it is an unnecessary ostentation of firepower. We could tell the British they could have saved quite a few thousands of pounds by not sending the destroyer” said Puricelli on Saturday during the ceremony in the port of Buenos Aires to receive the tall-mast naval school vessel ‘Libertad’, back from a world tour.

UK recently announced it was sending on South Atlantic patrol, including the Falklands and South Georgia, the Type 45 ultramodern destroyer, and the London press also speculated that a nuclear sub was on its way.

On Friday also Prince William a SAR RAF co-pilot arrived in the Falklands as part of his six week training and on Saturday made his first duty flight. The UK Ministry of Defence has described the deployment of the SAR crew with Prince William “as routine”.

“I’d say further more, if the crew that flew the Prince to the Falklands had had any problem the Argentine Navy would have come out to their rescue”, said Puricelli who insisted in the Argentine government’s policy of “eliminating all military content“ to the sovereignty dispute over the Malvinas Islands.

“They (UK) want to militarize the South Atlantic. We, Argentina and South America are telling the UK we don’t want to militarize the South Atlantic, we don’t want to contaminate it, we want the South Atlantic maritime front to be patrolled and protected by the Argentine Navy”, underlined the Defence minister.

Puricelli said he was convinced Argentina would recover the South Atlantic Islands before the end of the century, “since we have the support and commitment from the international community”.

“The UK knows very well they have no justification to retain the usurpation of Malvinas, so well before the end of this century Argentina will have full jurisdiction and possession of our Malvinas Islands”.

Meanwhile from Venezuela Argentine Foreign Affairs minister Hector Timerman thanked the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, ALBA, member states holding a summit in Caracas, for their support to Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the South Atlantic Islands.