Argentina asks UK for dialog, to abandon Falklands military presence

Buenos Aires, Apr 2 (EFE).- Argentina on Saturday reasserted its claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the start of the war with the United Kingdom over the archipelago, and asked London to resume the dialog and abandon its military presence there.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez led the official act at the Malvinas Museum (as the islands are known in Argentina) to commemorate Veteran’s Day and the Fallen in the 1982 conflict between Argentina and the UK.

Fernandez told the UK to comply with the United Nations resolutions, and demanded a “negotiated and peaceful solution.”

“We also request that the UK abandon the unjustified and excessive military presence on those islands, which does nothing more than bring tension to a region characterized as a zone of peace and international cooperation,” the president said.

The two countries clashed over the sovereignty of the islands, occupied by the UK since 1833, in a war that began on Apr. 2, 1982, with the landing of Argentine troops in the archipelago, and ended in June of that year with his surrender to British forces.

In the war, 255 Britons, three islanders and 649 Argentines died.

Since the end of the war, the UK has refused to resume negotiations with Argentina, despite repeated calls for dialog by the UN and other international forums.

The head of state stressed that “the Malvinas issue is a State policy” and remarked that the islands “were, are and will be Argentine” and that they will never “give up their claims.” EFE

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