MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina thanks Indonesia for support on Falklands issue and blasts multilateral organizations

Cristina Fernandez giving her message at Jakarta’s Presidential Palace

President Cristina Fernandez thanked Indonesia for the “permanent support” extended to Argentina in the “Malvinas cause” and reiterated that Argentina is only asking for the UK to respect and abide the United Nations resolution, but at the same time attacked multilateral organizations such as the UN and WTO for “favouring the great powers”.

“I want to thank Indonesia and its people for the permanent support for the Malvinas cause” said Cristina Fernandez addressing her peer Susilo Yudhovono during her message following their private meeting at the presidential palace in Jakarta.

The Argentine president on a Far East tour to promote trade and investments, agreed with the Indonesia leader Yudhovono to increase trade, promote cooperation in agriculture, tourism, bio-energy, transport, sports, health and education among others.

“We are only asking the UK to respect UN resolutions”, which call on both sides to begin a dialogue on the Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty.

“We don’t pretend to impose any criteria, just simply demand compliance with the current rules of the game and this means abiding by UN resolutions” said the Argentine president at the end of her message at the Credential Hall of the Government Palace.

However the Argentine president questioned and described as “absolutely non equitable and unfair” the way resolutions are complied whether they involve a strong power or a developing country absent from the global scenario.

The UN, the World Trade Organization and other multilateral bodies whenever “a resolution favours a great power or developed country it must be respected by all countries, but when it favours countries that are not protagonists they are ignored, they are violated systematically and even exposed to ongoing provocations as we are submitted by the UK”.

Cristina Fernandez added that Malvinas is not only a national cause, “but also a global cause” because the relation of force to impose “is a method which belongs to the last century which has proven not to give results to humanity”

That is why it is essential to “reformulate the rules of the game for the multilateral organizations”, which Cristina Fernandez underlined is a shared claim for Argentina and Indonesia.

“We have very similar points of view regarding the need to reformulate rules of the game for the multilateral organizations, particularly those referred to trade, and those that also deal with political multilateral bodies”.

Cristina Fernandez is travelling with a delegation of two hundred business people and the next call is Vietnam. Bilateral trade with Indonesia is in the range of almost two billion dollars. Indonesia provides products for industry and general merchandise valued at 1.5bn while Argentina exports over 400 million dollars mainly oil seeds and cereals.