MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina decries increasing UK flights to Falklands with Brazil stopovers

On Jan. 21 a RAF Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft landed at Porto Alegre to refuel and left the next day for the Falklands (Pic Aeroflap)

Argentina's Ambassador to Brazil Daniel Scioli has filed a note expressing his country's concern over British military aircraft stopping en route to the Falkland Islands.

“The Argentine Government sees with surprise and concern that during the course of the month of January 2022, seven military flights of these characteristics were carried out,” the diplomatic document read.

According to Argentine sources, seven British military flights have been carried out from Brazil to the Falkland Islands and back so far in 2022. The British military units have reportedly stopped over at Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Porto Alegre and Recife on January 9, 14, 15, 22, 24, 26 and 28.

“These flights constitute an additional manifestation of the illegitimate military presence of the United Kingdom in the South Atlantic, which has been described by the member states and associates of Mercosur as contrary to the region's policy of attachment to the search for a peaceful solution to the sovereignty dispute,” Scioli's note added.

The Argentine Government also pointed out it did not oppose humanitarian missions, but was addressing only the issue of flights with a strictly military purpose.

In 2017, Porto Alegre's newspaper Zero Hora had reported that the airport at the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul had become some sort of “supplier” to Royal Air Force aircraft flying from Britain to the Falkland Islands.

According to the Argentine note, “the political purpose pursued by the alleged 'stopovers' of British military aircraft in countries of the region is highlighted, since their continuity over time could be publicized as a kind of Brazilian acceptance of the presence of a military base in the South Atlantic.”

The document also specifies that Argentina understands a ”humanitarian flight“ is one carried out to attend a situation where human life is in danger due to a diseaase or an accident requiring medical assistance not available at the Falklands.

Therefore, Argentina would ”appreciate that the Brazilian Government seeks to restrict the granting of permits to British military aircraft coming from or bound for for the Malvinas Islands to only strictly humanitarian cases.“

The embassy also thanked the Brazilian government for its ”traditional and constant support for the legitimate Argentine rights over the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime spaces.“

The note was handed over to Pedro Miguel Costa e Silva, Brazil's Secretary of Bilateral and Regional Negotiations of the Americas, it was reported.

An Argentine diplomatic source quoted by Buenos Aires' daily La Nación explained that ”allowing this frequency of flights means accepting a military base in the region as something normal.”

The United Kingdom usually justifies the increasing number of flights due to the beginning of the Antarctic campaign. On Jan. 21 a RAF Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft landed at Porto Alegre to refuel and left the next day for the Falklands, La Nación reported.

Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero has launched the creation of the “Malvinas 40 años” agency to hold a series of events worldwide to raise awareness of the country's sovereignty claims 40 years after the war.