Members of the Falkland Islands elected Legislative Assembly made on Thursday an official release commenting on the announcement made by the UK government over the decision to begin negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) / Chagos Archipelago.
Argentine President Alberto Fernández Friday insisted the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands belonged to his country, which would never trade them “neither for vaccines nor for debts.”
The Falklands/Malvinas were not absent from the Argentine presidential candidates' debate on Sunday evening in Santa Fe province. President Mauricio Macri running for reelection was criticized by opposition front runner Alberto Fernandez for “forgetting to claim the Islands' sovereignty”.
While the relationship between the UK and Argentina is changing, the UK commitment to the people and sovereignty of the Falklands is unchanging, assured Prime Minister Theresa May in her Christmas speech to the Falklands.
Overall the Argentine government is satisfied how relations with the UK regarding the South Atlantic, and Falklands' sovereignty claims are evolving, was the message with which members of the so called Malvinas Question Observatory from Tierra del Fuego province, returned to Ushuaia after meeting with foreign ministry officials in Buenos Aires, according to local media reports.
Lawmaker from president Mauricio Macri ruling “Let's Change” group, Eduardo Amadeo, celebrated the UN recognition of Argentina's continental shelf extension presentation which means a strong support in the Malvinas Islands' sovereignty dispute with the UK, but also increased the country's territory by at least 35%.
Visiting Brazilian political advisor and environmentalist Eduardo Viola emphatically expressed support for the Falkland Islands’ right of self-determination during a press conference in Stanley with other visiting Brazilian colleagues, reports this week's edition of Penguin News.
The Argentine government said that the Malvinas Islands sovereignty claim is “not political opportunism” or geared “to remove other issues from the country’s political agenda” and is coherent with the political and ideological thinking of both Presidents Cristina Fernandez and her late husband and former president Nestor Kirchner.
President Cristina Fernandez has sent a letter to the Red Cross asking the international organization to intercede before the UK so that the remains of Argentine and British soldiers in the Falkland Islands which are still unknown, 30 years after the beginning of the Malvinas war can be identified.
Falkland Islands lawmaker Mike Summers accused Argentina of acting as a “schoolyard bully” trying to take sweets from others and described as intolerable that a country of that size should be trying to bully a country of 3.000 people into submission. “It’s a country you’d not want to be associated with”.