Growing tension between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Argentine Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday that the Government of Alberto Fernandez will reiterate its claim to the United Kingdom, in case the integrity of declassified files on the sending of ships with 31 nuclear weapons to the Malvinas Islands during the 1982 war conflict is confirmed.

Argentina’s position is part of the country’s policy against the proliferation of atomic weapons. It also anticipated that it would raise a worrying situation before international organizations.

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“The Argentine government will reiterate its claim to the government of the United Kingdom, and in the framework of its invariable policy against nuclear weapons and their use, it plans to raise this situation before the competent international organizations”, said the Foreign Ministry.

According to the Argentine Foreign Ministry’s note, this complaint will be made “if the existence of declassified files that provide further details regarding the seriousness of the facts reported in the media is confirmed, due to the magnitude and circumstances that would have been revealed”.

In this regard, the Argentine Foreign Ministry points out, “in relation to the recent information published in the Declassified UK portal on the sending of British ships with 31 nuclear weapons to the South Atlantic conflict, that in 2003 the British Ministry of Defense published a report in which it was mentioned that the task force that was set up to go to the South Atlantic during the 1982 conflict included ships equipped with nuclear weapons”.

Nineteen years ago, the United Kingdom denied that it had violated the Treaty of Tlatelolco on nuclear non-proliferation and that all weapons returned to British soil “in good condition”.

The government department recalls that the Foreign Ministry “sent in 2003 a note of protest to the United Kingdom expressing the extreme seriousness of the situation and requesting precise and complete information on the different aspects involved in the revealed facts”.

In this regard, it demands that “in particular, it should be assured that there are no nuclear weapons anywhere in the South Atlantic, neither in sunken ships, on the seabed nor under any other form or circumstance”.

The Argentine protest comes on the occasion of the launching of the Malvinas 40 years Agenda and the commemoration, on Tuesday, of another anniversary of the military occupation of the archipelago.