MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina to oppose Kosovo troops training at Falklands

Militarizing the South Atlantic would be against UN resolutions, Argentina's Foreign Ministry claimed

Argentina's Foreign Ministry Thursday said it would strongly object to the presence of Kosovo troops in the Falkland Islands even if for training purposes because it would be in violation of UN resolutions.

The Argentine embassy in Serbia tipped the Malvinas Secretariat that Kosovo's Parliament had approved the sending of a group of Kosovo Albanian soldiers to the Falklands as a “peace support mission” and as part of its military agreements with the United Kingdom.

Kosovo is a small and self-proclaimed independent republic in 2008 with the endorsement of the United States and other NATO powers.

There has been no official confirmation from the British Ministry of Defense regarding these maneuvers, which Argentina regards as “evidence of the militarization” of the South Atlantic, for which “a strong formal protest to the United Kingdom” will be filed.

“The Government strongly rejects the intention to send new military troops to the Malvinas Islands, Argentine territory illegitimately occupied by the United Kingdom, which constitutes an unjustified show of force and a deliberate departure from the calls of numerous international resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and other international forums,” Foreign Ministry sources told Clarín.

Argentina also rejected “the alleged 'peace mission' nature of the military activity in question as totally unjustified.”

Argentina has never recognized Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, as an independent state, but some 100 other countries have.

Kosovo and the UK reportedly signed an agreement in September 2022 regarding troop deployments. Similar agreements are said to be in force between Kosovo and the United States.

Argentine blue helmets have been deployed as part of a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo in 2006 to provide assistance mainly to Kosovar Albanian children.