Two Chevening scholars from British Overseas Territories visited the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London and were impressed at the number of staff focused on the Falklands and their knowledge and proactive stance towards the Islands.
“I THINK there is no doubt that the Argentine Government will continue to look for opportunities to pull stunts of one kind or another.”
The speaker was Dr Peter Hayes, the Director of the FCO’s Overseas Territories Directorate who was paying a short visit to the Falkland Islands last week.
A day after Argentine President Cristina Fernández sent an open letter to be published as an advert in several UK newspapers calling on PM David Cameron’s government to re-open negotiations over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, the UK responded: “the Islanders remain free to choose their own futures.”
The disruption of shipping and tourism in Argentina and the Falkland Islands reached the British Parliament and was addressed by Foreign Office officials who said the UK regrets the Argentine attitude but is also holding talks with international partners that share concerns about illegitimate interferences, and with the cruise industry.
The Falkland Islands Government announced on Friday the appointment of Mr Colin Roberts CVO as the next Governor of the Falkland Islands.
A Royal Navy warship used a routine logistical visit to Gibraltar on Wednesday to patrol British waters around the Rock. The highly unusual move came a day after an incursion by a Spanish Navy vessel and against the background of diplomatic tension between the UK and Spain over the waters row.
British Government has lost a crucial appeal before the European Court of Justice [ECJ] relating to Gibraltar’s territorial waters. Britain was seeking to overturn an earlier judgement dismissing its legal challenge to the European Commission’s approval of a Spanish EU nature site in British waters.
Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell has written to the London representatives of British Overseas Territories to alert them to what he sees as a shortfall in a new report on the future of the Commonwealth.
For the first time, the 16 flags of the British Overseas Territories including the Falkland Islands are being flown in Parliament Square, alongside the flags of the Crown Dependencies, to mark a state occasion, reports an official release from the Foreign Office.
There can be no negotiations on the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands unless and until such time as the Islanders so wish was the official reply from the UK to remarks made by Argentine president Cristina Fernandez during her speech on Tuesday before the UN General Assembly.