Argentina withdraws from Falklands pact with UK, demands new talks over sovereignty
- Argentina again asks the UK to restart negotiations over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands
- It is the latest chapter in Argentina’s long-held claim over the British-run islands, which included the 1982 war
The UK government insisted the Falkland Islands remained British as Argentina walked away from a cooperation pact and demanded new talks over their sovereignty.
Known as the Malvinas in Spanish, the UK-ruled islands were the subject of a short but brutal war after Argentina invaded in 1982. Britain drove out the invading force after dispatching a naval armada.
In 2016, the two sides agreed to disagree about sovereignty, but to cooperate on issues such as energy, shipping and fishing, and on identifying the remains of unknown Argentine soldiers killed in battle.
But at G20 talks in New Delhi, Argentinian Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero informed UK counterpart James Cleverly that his government was abandoning the pact.
In a series of tweets, he renewed Argentina’s long-standing demands instead for negotiations about sovereignty of the islands at the UN in New York.
“The Falkland Islands are British,” Cleverly retorted on Twitter over Cafiero’s thread.
