By Gerald Heneghan
David Cameron has hit back at Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as part of a newly-ignited row over the Falkland Islands.
Speaking in Preston yesterday (January 3rd), the prime minister dismissed her appeal for further negotiations over the territory’s sovereignty, stating that the future of the Islands should be decided by their residents.
“Whenever they have been asked their opinion, they say they want to maintain their current status with the United Kingdom,” He said.
Cameron went on to urge the Argentine president to recognise a forthcoming referendum on the issue of sovereignty, which is due to take place later this year.”Whenever they have been asked their opinion, they say they want to maintain their current status with the United Kingdom,” He said.
Earlier in the week, Kirchner called on the UK prime minister to reconsider abiding by a 1965 resolution put forward by the United Nations, which urged the two parties to resume negotiations over the disputed territories.
In an open letter published in The Guardian newspaper, she described Britain’s annexation of the islands as a “blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism”.
“The United Kingdom subsequently began a population implantation process similar to that applied to other territories under colonial rule,” the Argentinian president said.
Control over the Falkland Islands, also known by their Spanish name of the Islas Malvinas, has been an issue of international contention since the colonial era.
In 1982, the matter came to a head after the military junta in charge of Argentina at the time dispatched troops to invade the Islands and the UK sent an expeditionary force to retake the territory, sparking the short-lived Falklands War, and precipitating the surrender of Argentine forces in the area.
Image used courtesy of Asianet-Pakistan / Shutterstock.com.
