Argentina Triggers Argument Over Falklands

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner on Wednesday accused the United Kingdom’s prime minister of responding in an “irate manner” to comments made by her foreign minister relating to the disputed Falklands Islands.

The clash of words took place at the ongoing European Union-Latin America celac summit when Argentine Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman used an address at the summit to call on the British delegation to engage in dialogue over the islands.

Argentina invaded the Islands in 1982, causing a short but bloody war over the tiny south Atlantic archipelago. Britain won the war decisively.

Argentina refers to the islands as Las Malvinas and continues to push its tenuous claim to sovereignty over the islands. A referendum in 2013, however, found that 99.7 percent of the Falklands’ inhabitants want the islands to remain under British control.