Argentina makes new haunting move in Falklands row as newest threat issued to UK
The row between Argentina and the UK over the Falkland Islands is raging on, and now the South American country has made a fresh threat.
The Falkland Islands, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, have been under British administration for nearly 200 years.
Seemingly those on the island are happy with the arrangement, too. Back in 2013 there was a referendum where 99.8 percent of voters said they wanted to remain as a British Overseas Territory.
Speaking back in 2023 a decade on from the vote, Chair of the Legislative Assembly, MLA Leona Roberts, doubled down on those in the Falklands being happy with the arrangement.
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"The Falkland Islands are a proud member of the British family and we will defend our status as an internally self-governing, financially self-sufficient British Overseas Territory," she said, per The Falkland Islands Assosciation.
Roberts went on: "As a country we have to continually remind the international community that Falkland Islanders’ have the right to self-determination; that will was never more clearly exercised than in the referendum 10 years ago and must be respected by those who value democracy and freedom.
"The political status of the Islands is the decision of our people and not of our aggressive and hostile neighbor."
Despite this, Argentina have recently renewed their claims the Islands are Argentine territory. Addressing United Nations at a general assembly in New York yesterday (September 23), Argentinian president Javier Milei said that the country will take 'matters into our own hands' amid the ongoing dispute with Britain.
"Argentina is not going to sit around waiting for the UN and the international community to live up to their own mandate," he said, as per The Guardian. "We’re going to take matters into our own hands."
Milei also accused the UN of looking 'the other way' when it came to the Falkland Islands, which he referred to as Malvinas Islands.
"For us, the Malvinas are a national cause," he continued. Milei proceeded the call the UN a 'useless organisation whose only purpose is to sustain a cast of faintly arrogant parasites masquerading as well-intentioned bureaucrats'.
But Britain's new prime minster Andy Burnham doesn't plan on rolling over to Argentina anytime soon. He raised the ongoing issue with President Donald Trump during his visit to the US.
"I didn’t react immediately when the Argentinian president made his recent comments, but in this forum, I think it’s right for me to set out the position clearly, and the clear position is: we will stand firm in the face of any threats," Burnham said, The Independent reports.
"We will defend the right of the Falkland Islanders to self-determination and to remain British.
"And I just wanted the president to know directly from me, that’s the clear British position, and he very much understood what I was saying."
Topics: World News, UK News, Politics
Niamh Shackleton