British and Argentinian leaders clash over Falklands
MEXICO: Argentina's President Cristina Kirchner and Britain's Prime
Minister David Cameron clashed publicly at the G20 summit on Tuesday
over the future of the disputed Falkland Islands.
Argentinian officials branded the British leader a "colonialist" in
dismissing Kirchner's call for talks on the sovereignty of the islands,
while Cameron said he had been attempting to counter Argentina's
"propaganda".
The pair came face-to-face at the meeting of the world's major
economies in Mexico, at a time when tensions between their countries
were already running high just days after the 30th anniversary of the
Falklands War.
Cameron urged Kirchner to respect the will of the 3,000 residents on
the South Atlantic islands, who want to remain British. Kirchner
countered him by citing UN resolutions calling for sovereignty
negotiations. "The president had the UN resolutions and she said to
Cameron: 'Let's respect the United Nations'," Argentina's Foreign
Minister Hector Timmerman said.
"The Prime Minister refused to accept the documents, turned his back
and walked away without a farewell," he added, accusing Britain of
disrespecting UN resolutions and of retaining an imperialist mindset.
"After years of acting as a colonial power they have forgotten that
they are responsible for the existence of colonialism, and that it is
countries like Argentina that defeated most of the colonial projects in
the world," he said.
Cameron confirmed he approached Kirchner in order to urge her to
respect the right of Falkland Islanders to choose their own future in an
upcoming referendum that is expected to show overwhelming opposition to
Argentinian rule.
"We should be clear that because there's a referendum there's an
opportunity for those countries in the world who have not looked at this
issue for a while and have perhaps accepted some of the propaganda put
around by Argentina or its supporters to look again at this issue and
recognize that the people of these islands should be able to determine
their own future," he said.
"It's an important point to make to the Argentine president and an
important point to make more widely and that's exactly why I did what I
did." A Downing Street source, speaking on condition of anonymity,
confirmed that there had been a tense exchange, but downplayed the
allegation that Cameron had refused to accept a packet of documents from
Kirchner. "He took it up to her to make those points. She took that
badly and that was basically it," she said.
AFP
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