Argentine President-Elect Javier Milei has affirmed a “non-negotiable” claim of Argentine sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, vowing his administration will “make every effort” to take the islands from the British – albeit “through diplomatic channels”.
“It is clear that the war option is not a solution,” he said. “We had a war – that we lost – and now we have to make every effort to recover the islands through diplomatic channels,” he said referring to the 1982 invasion and occupation of the Falklands by Argentina which ended with them being forcibly ejected from the territory by a British expeditionary force sent by Margaret Thatcher.
Three Falkland Islanders, 255 British servicemen, and 649 Argentines were killed in the war. In a 2013 referendum, almost 100 percent of the island’s inhabitants, numbering around 3,500, voted in favor of remaining a British Overseas Territory.
Almost everyone on the islands which were uninhabited prior to being settled by the British – decades before Argentina was even founded – is of British descent.
In response to Milei, a spokesman for the British government said it would “continue to proactively defend the Falkland Islanders’ right to self-determination”.
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