Argentina makes task to retake Falkland islands as ‘state policy’ calling regional support | World | News

The nation’s Malvinas Secretary Daniel Filmus today said: “The Malvinas cause doesn’t only concern Argentina, but also the entire region.” The Secretary for the Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands of the Foreign Ministry, Daniel Filmus, said that Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Falkland Islands is a concern of the entire Mercosur South American trading bloc. He also stressed that the government of Argentina has made the issue “state policy” after the creation of the National Council for Archipelago Affairs.

In the latest interview with the Argentine national news agency Télam, Daniel Filmus said it would study the discomfort of the islanders with the decision of the UK to exclude them from the post-Brexit trade agreement with the European Union.

In December 2020 the Mercosur administration said it would affirm its full support to Argentina’s right to initiate legal actions against the “illegal, non-authorised activities involving the exploitation of natural resources in the Malvinas Islands”.

The Mercosur organisation is a regional trading bloc in South America, established by the Treaty of Asunción in 1991.

Mr Filmus said: “Mercosur’s permanent support for Argentine sovereign rights over the Malvinas Islands shows that it is a cause that does not only concern our country, but also the regional bloc.

Mr Filmus said: “The agreement signed last week in Geneva, at the International Red Cross, which begins the second phase of the humanitarian initiative that will identify the Argentine soldiers who fell fighting bravely in Malvinas, is the result of a State policy that began in 2012 and which, after many years of waiting, has already allowed 115 families to identify and honour their loved ones.

“We will continue working to conclude with the identification of all the fallen.”

Mr Filmus then challenged the UK’s right to maintain a military presence on the Falklands.

Speaking to Télam, Mr Filmus said: “Argentina, and all the multilateral organisations of which it is a part, have condemned the British military presence in the South Atlantic.

“The military base in Malvinas is a threat to the entire region and violates United Nations resolutions on Malvinas and the South Atlantic Peace zone.

“This base in no way has a defensive sense, since Argentina has reiterated that the only way to recover the exercise of sovereignty is through peace and dialogue.

“The main objective of the military presence is to ensure British access and control of Antarctica, the bi-oceanic corridor between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and to ensure that the United Kingdom can continue to exploit the natural resources of that entire region.

“The Argentine Foreign Ministry strongly condemned Boris Johnson’s decision to maintain a military presence in the Islands.”

Additional reporting by Maria Ortega.