Peruvian ministers openly disagreed over the recent decision to turn back the Royal Navy’s HMS Montrose, in solidarity with Argentina and its sovereignty claims over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands.
During a live press conference on Tuesday, Argentine President Cristina Fernández thanked “the Peruvian government and population” for their decision to leave without effect the scheduled, but controversial, visit of a British frigate “in support of the Argentine sovereignty claim over the Malvinas Islands.”
Peruvian Foreign Affairs minister Rafael Roncagliolo denied President Ollanta Humala had accepted an invitation to visit London next month, Lima’s El Comercio reported Tuesday in the front page.
In a display of “Latin American support for Argentina’s legitimate rights,” the Peruvian government announced on Monday its decision to render void the protocol visit of a British frigate scheduled to dock in a Peruvian port this week.
EU trade ministers agreed on Friday to approve a free trade pact with Colombia and Peru that could boost European car and chemical exports and lift food and mineral exports from the South American countries.
Spain rejected Peru's claim to a huge multimillion-dollar undersea treasure recovered from the wreckage of a galleon that had left from Montevideo port more than 200 years ago loaded with precious metals originally from the Peruvian highlands.
A main border pass between Chile and Peru remains closed to all traffic because recent heavy rainfall and flooding have swept antipersonnel and anti-tank mines in the region, in some cases all the way to the Pacific, where beaches have been put out of limits.
The US Acting Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roberta Jacobson, ratified the Obama administration’s standing on the Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty issue, which urges Argentina and the United Kingdom to find a diplomatic exit to the matter.
Peru’s former Foreign Affairs minister, Jose Antonio Garcia-Belaunde, says it is unlikely that Peru would back Argentina if there were a new conflict with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, newspaper El Comercio reported.
US Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta S. Jacobson travels this week to Peru and Argentina to meet with government, business, and civil society members in these key regional partners.