MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

For consular purposes Uruguay considers Malvinas as the “dependent territory” of the Islas Falklands

The UN denomination of the disputed territory is Falklands/Malvinas.

For consular purposes the Uruguayan Foreign Affairs ministry refers to the Malvinas Islands, which are claimed by Argentina with the support of Mercosur members, as the “dependent territory” of the “Islas Falklands”.

This according to an official document, dated 12 June 2012 in which the ministry of Foreign affairs modifies consular jurisdictions to better accommodate them to the needs of Uruguayan residents overseas.

A copy of the text was published by a Montevideo newspaper in which it refers to the Islas Falklands as “dependent territories” and since Uruguay has no consular office in Stanley (it did have for many decades), all matters must be referred to the embassy in London.

The same applies for South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, over which Argentina also claims sovereignty. All matters must be referred to the London embassy.

“The established jurisdictions will not be used as an argument to deny consular services to whoever requests them. When national and international rules impede rendering the service, the consular staff that receives the request must extreme efforts to orient and help requesters and put them in contact with the competent office” reads the decree.

Since Uruguay does not have representatives in all countries, affairs in Algeria for example are supervised from the embassy in Paris and Iraq comes under the jurisdiction of the embassy in Saudi Arabia.

In South America, Uruguay has embassies in all countries with the exception of Guyana and Suriname and these two countries are the jurisdiction of the embassy in Costa Rica.

At the last December Mercosur summit in Montevideo President Jose Mujica was one of the sponsors of regional ports’ ban for all vessels flying the “illegal” Falklands flag, an initiative supported by all members and later made extensive to the rest of South American countries. However Mujica said Uruguay would not accompany any measure that infringes in the Islanders human rights.