Falklands dispute may last decades - Argentina president

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 71 points – Falklands dispute may last decades - Argentina president
bbc.com

Argentina’s president Javier Milei says he accepts the Falkland Islands are currently “in the hands of the UK".

In an interview with the BBC, the right-wing politician vowed to get the islands back through diplomatic channels but said there was “no instant solution”.

His language on the status of the Falklands is different from past leaders who have historically maintained the islands are Argentine.

President Milei admitted it could take decades to try to gain sovereignty of the Falkland Islands from the UK and said Argentina does not "seek conflict".

It comes after he promised a “roadmap” for the islands to become Argentine, on the 42nd anniversary of the Falklands War in early April.

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This seems like a playbook answer to a question about a subject that's of little immediate importance to his administration, but of some importance to a minority in both Argentina and Britain. Basically saying to his electorate "we haven't forgotten" and to Britain "we're not going to do anything".

It is similar to how the US and China treated Taiwan. There is a fundamental disagreement with the territory, but it isn't worth the cost of trying to resolve the issue over maintaining the status quo.

This is correct. I think you are underestimating the quantity of persons who care about this in both countries, but then again, we both have currently worst things to deal with.

This whole thing is so weird to me. I did a road trip through Argentina some time ago and every once in a while I'd see a random road sign just saying "Las Malvinas son Argentinas". They just won't let it go.

Dude, you came in on a ticket to fix the economy - maybe fucking focus on that.

This is him focusing on that. This statement makes it clear that the status of the Falklands is not his priority.

Exports The top exports of Falkland Islands are Molluscs ($330M), Non-fillet Frozen Fish ($36.3M), Wool ($7.87M), Fish Fillets ($3.77M), and Sheep and Goat Meat ($2.51M)

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/flk

Why the fuck do you care?

Oil.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_the_Falkland_Islands#Petroleum_exploration_and_reserves

Despite what that says, the British haven't bothered extracting it, which I think is pretty telling.

They've done a lot of exploration, though. I worked on some of the kit that went there. It came back pretty beat up, so it's rough out there, but there's plenty of oil.

New oil extractions were halted in the North Sea for a while, not extracting it doesn't mean much. It just means it's not been deemed profitable enough yet.