Argentina has accused the UK of exploiting a UN maritime treaty to undermine its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, sparking fresh tensions between the two nations.
Argentina’s foreign minister, Diana Mondino, recently signed a UN-backed agreement known as the Convention on the Law of the Sea. The treaty, which aims to regulate fishing in international waters, will be debated by Argentinian MPs in the coming days.
However, some politicians have already voiced their opposition to the treaty, claiming that the UK government is cunningly using the agreement to reinforce its grip on the Falklands. Gustavo Pulti, a legislator from Union por la Patria, stated that the treaty included “a recognition of the United Kingdom as a coastal state that directly affects Argentinian rights.”
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He further added: “This means that measures implemented in the territory cannot be questioned by Argentina due to the multilateral, not national, power created by the agreement and fundamentally due to granting coastal status to the occupying country, that is, to Great Britain.”
(Image: Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)
The former mayor of General Pueyrredon argued that the agreement could make it significantly more difficult for Argentina to prevent the UK from “appropriating vast resources belonging to Argentina, as clearly happens with fishing and planned oil extraction,” reports the Express.
“It is no coincidence that this agreement, invoking the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, has been pushed by certain environmental organisations that clearly respond to British interests,” he pointed out.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Fellow deputy Hugo Yasky backed him up, declaring his readiness “was willing to push for a law rejecting the treaty.”
“We agreed with him on the importance of urging Congress to reject the treaty and prevent our country from falling victim to a typical British ploy,” he stated following a meeting with Pulti.
The Falkland Islands are raking in a hefty £31m annually from their fishery industry.
Meanwhile, the islanders are on the brink of cashing in on the Sea Lion oilfield, which is estimated to hold over 300 million barrels, potentially netting them billions.
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Teslyn Barkman, from the Falklands Legislative Assembly, told the Express about the oil find’s potential boon for UK businesses, revealing that a cool £750 million could be heading straight to British firms during the initial development stages, not to mention the creation of over a thousand jobs.
Yet Argentina is set to miss out on the oil windfall due to its own political stance towards the Islands.
“Argentina has created a list of illegal economic sanctions and a bunch of domestic laws that target businesses that operate in the Falklands,” she detailed.
(Image: Getty Images)
“So, by their own doing, I suppose, they restrict businesses from investing here because they don’t recognise our people as existing, which, as you can imagine, is rather a confusing state of affairs.”
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