The recent visit to Chile and particularly Uruguay of Foreign Office minister for Latin-American Hugo Swire has triggered a barrage of comments and debate in Argentina about the Falklands/Malvinas, particularly aggressive towards the FCO official, but not surprising.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández has criticized what she dubbed a double standard from the United Kingdom, due to the nation condemning the Crimean referendum on union with Russia while supporting the rights of Falklands/Malvinas residents to hold a vote on their future.
Crimea means more to Russia than the Falklands mean to Britain, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday after holding last-ditch talks on the region with his U.S. counterpart John Kerry.
Foreign Office minister for Latin America Hugo Swire MP, who recently visited the Falklands, sent a letter to Falkland Islanders thanking the warm reception and congratulating them on their strong sense of identity and community. The letter was published in this Friday's edition of the Penguin News.
Argentine Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman said he must be doing the right things regarding the Falklands/Malvinas issue because the Foreign Office prefers to talk to members of the opposition.
British Minister of State for the Foreign Office Hugo Swire has stated London would rather sit at the negotiating table with Argentine opposition presidential hopefuls Sergio Massa or Mauricio Macri to discuss Falklands/Malvinas Islands sovereignty.
A senior Foreign Office minister summed up Britain’s position on Gibraltar firmly and concisely this week in Parliament. “At the heart of this issue is the right of the people of Gibraltar to determine their own future,” said Baroness Warsi, Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The Falkland Islands latest Penguin News editorial picks on the Chagos Islanders controversy surfaced by Ambassador Alicia Castro and laments that Argentina insists that Falkland Islanders 'are a non people entitled to nothing', but on the other hand had it not been for the Argentine act of aggression that shone a spotlight on our existence as a population, we too might have ended up a people without a place.
Sooner than later Argentina will be able to discuss with the UK the Malvinas Islands sovereignty issue as indicated by the UN resolutions, said Argentine president Cristina Fernandez during her speech to the General Assembly opening the 132th legislative period last Saturday, March first.
UK Foreign Secretary, William Hague, personally raised Britain’s concerns about persistent “illegal” Spanish incursions into British Gibraltar territorial waters, it was revealed. Mr. Hague spoke to Gonzalo de Benito, the Secretary of State at the Spanish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, on February 20 on the margins of an emergency meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council to discuss the situation in Ukraine.