MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Burnham says he raised the Falklands with Trump at their first meeting

“I think he's going to be a great prime minister. I think he's got a lot of assets on his side,” Trump said, adding that the United Kingdom “is a really special country”

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Tuesday that he raised the question of the Falklands with US President Donald Trump during their first meeting, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. “The Falklands we mentioned. And you were good enough to listen to us on those issues,” he told reporters. Trump made no public response on the archipelago.

The approach comes eleven days after the US president sidestepped, in Dublin, a question on whether the United States would come to Britain's aid in any future conflict over the islands, and after he told the BBC that he reviews every position. Several outlets have noted that those remarks, along with his comments favouring Irish unification, unsettled the British government.

The tone of the meeting was warm. “I think he's going to be a great prime minister. I think he's got a lot of assets on his side,” Trump said, adding that the United Kingdom “is a really special country” and that Washington is “with you all the way”. Burnham replied that the relationship “matters so much” to his country and that the two had established “a good connection” in earlier discussions. He also reminded Trump that Manchester, where he was mayor before entering Downing Street in July, is not a “town” as the president had described it, but “a great city”. “I don't hold it against you as the former mayor,” he joked.

It is their first face-to-face meeting; the two had spoken twice by telephone since Burnham took office. Trump had described him as “a nice guy”. As mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham had said Trump was not welcome in the city and that he would refuse to meet him.

The agenda covered Ukraine, the Middle East, trade, energy, immigration and Rolls-Royce, as Trump himself set out. Burnham was seeking interceptor missiles to bolster Ukraine's air defences ahead of winter, and ways to restore the movement of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, largely blocked since the start of the war with Iran in February, a closure that has driven up crude prices. “We're still ready to play our part in the Middle East in terms of helping you stop the conflict, open the strait,” the prime minister said, mentioning a request from Saudi Arabia and adding: “obviously, we're with you that Iran must never be a nuclear power”.

The United States has never taken a formal position on sovereignty over the archipelago, though it recognises British de facto administration and supported the 1982 military campaign. Argentina claims sovereignty over the islands; in the 2013 referendum, 99.8% of voters chose to retain the status of a British overseas territory.