Argentina Accuses U.K. of Sending Nuclear Weapons to Falklands
February 10, 2012, 5:10 PM ESTBy Flavia Krause-Jackson
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina’s top diplomat travelled today to New York to lodge a complaint with the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the U.K. is sending “nuclear weapons” to the Falkland Islands.
Pointing to a series of slides, Argentinean Foreign Minister Hector Timerman told reporters in New York that the U.K. has increased its military presence on the islands fourfold and was clinging to “the last vestige of a declining empire.”
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina’s president, this week complained about the U.K.’s “militarization” of the southern Atlantic Ocean around the islands after Britain decided to send one of its newest destroyers, HMS Dauntless, to the islands to replace an older ship and deploy Prince William, a military helicopter pilot, to the region.
Tensions between Britain and Argentina are rising as the 30th anniversary approaches of the war between the countries over the South Atlantic archipelago. The dispute has been inflamed by British plans to search for oil around the Falklands, located about 480 kilometers (280 miles) from the South American mainland.
Timerman said the Dauntless was a “nuclear submarine with the capacity to unload nuclear weapons.” U.K. Ambassador to UN Mark Lyall Grant responded that those allegations were “manifestly absurd.” The U.K. says William is on a routine deployment and that British ships regularly visit the South Atlantic.
The Falklands, held by Britain since 1833, are home to about 3,000 people that want to stay British.
“We will defend the Falkland Islands properly,” said U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday. “I think that is very simply put, very straightforward and shouldn’t leave anybody in any doubt about our support for the Falkland Islands, for their people and for the status they themselves want to maintain.”
Ban today called for the U.K. and Argentina to “avoid an escalation” of a dispute over the Falkland Islands.
After meeting with Timerman, Ban “expressed concern about the increasingly strong exchanges” between the two countries, according to a statement released by the UN spokesperson’s office in New York.
Argentina has said William, the second in line to the British throne, was going to the islands, which it calls the Malvinas, as a “conqueror.”
Cameron told lawmakers on Jan. 18 that Argentina’s behavior toward the islands is “like colonialism.”
Argentine military dictator Leopoldo Galtieri ordered the invasion of the Falklands on April 2, 1982. Argentine troops were defeated by British forces on June 14 that year. The war bolstered the government of U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, known as “The Iron Lady,” and helped her win re- election in 1983.
--Editors: Robert Jameson
To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in United Nations at fjackson@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net
