UK ‘disappointed’ over Argentina snub

LONDON: The UK Foreign Office has said that it is “massively disappointed” with the decision of Argentina’s foreign minister to turn down the offer of talks with William Hague over the future of the Falklands, after a row over whether the islanders should be present.

Argentina’s foreign secretary, Hector Timerman, had objected to representatives of the Falkland Islands government being part of the talks, but a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office has said it would be “unthinkable” not to include the islanders.

Representatives of the Port Stanley government were flying to London this weekend to tell Timerman that Buenos Aires should respect islanders’ rights and leave them in peace.

But Timerman, who had initially asked for a one-to-one meeting with the foreign secretary, sent a letter overnight saying he would not accept the offer of a meeting involving the islands’ government, which Argentina does not recognise as legitimate.

The United Nations regards the dispute over the islands, which Argentina knows as the Malvinas, as a bilateral issue between Buenos Aires and London, he said.

He said he was sorry Hague could not “meet without the supervision of the colonists from the Malvinas”.

The Foreign Office said on Friday morning that the UK was not ready to compromise on the presence of Falkland Islands representatives.

“We are not prepared to have a meeting where the Falkland Islanders are not represented or where the Falkland Islands are not mentioned,” a spokeswoman said. “We’re massively disappointed by the Argentinian response.”

Insisting on a Falkland Islands presence appears to be a new condition laid down by Britain for a ministerial meeting with Argentina. The Foreign Office spokeswoman said that because of the rising tension in recent months between the two countries over the islands “it would be unthinkable not to have the islands represented”.

Timerman invited Hague to meet him in Buenos Aires, where he said “my fellow foreign ministers can freely meet with whomever they wish without being pressured or having their presence conditioned on meetings that they haven’t asked for and don’t interest them”.

The Argentinian president, Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner, has in recent years strongly asserted her country’s demands for the Falklands to come under its sovereignty despite the opposition of the islanders.

Earlier this month, she had an advert published in British newspapers claiming Argentina had been stripped of the islands in “a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism”.

The British prime minister, David Cameron, has repeatedly insisted the residents of the Falklands must decide their own future and a referendum on the islands’ political status is to be held in March.

In a statement released before Timerman turned down the meeting, the legislative assembly of the Falkland Islands stressed that their representatives, Dick Sawle and Jan Cheek, would not be “negotiating any deal”.

ent is willing to meet with the government of Argentina in order to make our views clear, and to discuss matters of mutual interest including fisheries and communication.” – Guardian News and Media 2013