Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic Secretary Guillermo Carmona has warned that for the relationship with the UK to be fully deployed, “the Malvinas issue must be resolved” and, along the way , reopen a “dialogue of” negotiated and peaceful solution “to the dispute of sovereignty over the islands, usurped in 1833 by the British.

Carmona, in an interview with Télam, clarified that for “the political, economic and diplomatic relations between Argentina and the United Kingdom to unfold fully, the Malvinas question must be resolved, a dialogue must be initiated on the way to a negotiated and peaceful solution to this sovereignty dispute”.

In addition, the Foreign Office official observed that the UK is “violating international law by ignoring” UN resolutions and “the obligation established by international law to proceed with the decolonization of the Malvinas and to resume the negotiations that make it possible to resolve this case of violation of Argentine territorial integrity”.

Then the full interview:

T: What conclusions do you draw from the 40-year Malvinas Agenda rolled out this year?
C: Every year, Malvinas is an important issue on the national agenda, but this year we also had the opportunity to strengthen the possibility of the Malvinas issue from the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Atlantic conflict South and the commemoration of other important events. which also happened in this year 1982, like the one commemorated on Friday and which is the approval by the General Assembly of the United Nations of resolution 37/9 which, after the war in the Falklands, meant the recognition by the UN that the sovereignty dispute was still in effect and that the UK should comply with the UN mandate to sit down at the negotiating table.

– Do you find that there is a better understanding at the international level of the Argentine claim?
– There are two aspects to consider. On the one hand, within the framework of the consolidation of support, Argentina has succeeded this year in expressing very categorical support in other areas which, for example, in the Decolonization Committee, have not been expressed .

This year, we heard Pakistan’s speeches in the Decolonization Committee on behalf of the more than 130 countries that make up the G77 + China.

Iraq, South Africa and Serbia were countries that did not speak in committee and this year they did, that is to say that we managed to express support that did not had not been expressed before in an area as important as this.

On the other hand, the traditional support that Argentina receives mainly from our region but also from a large number of countries from different regions of the world has been re-edited.

And the support that we obtained last year from the countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) during the recent general assembly held again in Lima, where we obtained that, by consensus, the countries of the Americas, including the United States and Canada, and not just the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, support us in our request for the resumption of negotiations.

-After the war, negotiations with the United Kingdom were suspended. How do you work to get them back?
-The Malvinas 40 Year Agenda has allowed us not only to commemorate the war and consider its consequences by recognizing veterans and the dead, but it has also allowed us to value the foreign policy effort and the diplomatic action that Argentina has carried out around the question of the Falklands.

Just as the military defeat whose consequences are projected to this day hurts us, especially in the suffering of the veterans and their families, it is also important that the diplomatic triumphs of Argentina are valued.

A few months after the end of the war, Argentina achieved an emphatic diplomatic victory on November 4, 1982, which was the approval of resolution 37/9, which expresses a criterion of international law, namely that wars do not do not confer rights and therefore, he again urged the UK and Argentina to resume the process to find a peaceful and concerted solution to the sovereignty dispute.

This is a very relevant historical fact and it must be taken into account that it allowed Argentina, after a military defeat, to have a position of strength in the United Nations system in terms of ratifying what is in force since 1965, established resolution 2065.

The United Kingdom is systematically violating international law by ignoring UN resolutions and it is therefore our duty to remind them and to keep international public opinion aware that the Malvinas issue is awaiting resolution and that they have the obligation established by law to proceed with the decolonization of the Malvinas and to resume the negotiations that allow the resolution of this case of violation of the Argentine territorial integrity.

All our diplomatic actions go in this direction: to recover the full exercise of sovereignty by international law.

In this context, in the bilateral agenda with the United Kingdom, just as the question of the Malvinas is present in the multilateral agenda of the United Nations and other international bodies, the question of the Malvinas also occupies a central place in the relationship bilateral, as indicated by President Alberto Fernández during his meeting with Prime Minister Boris Johnson a few months ago.

Did this meeting with Johnson serve the Argentine objective?
-The answer is yes. Bear in mind that the meeting was requested by Johnson and that the Prime Minister discussed with President Fernandez the British interest in our food, energy and minerals.

The President expressed very categorically what is the position of Argentina in this regard. All aspects of bilateral relations with the UK are part of our priority to resolve the Falklands issue.

Therefore, the President did what, according to the National Constitution, every Argentine President must do, and not all have done before, namely to declare that in order for political, economic and diplomatic relations to be fully deployed between the Argentina and the United Kingdom, the question of the Falklands must be resolved, a dialogue must begin on the paths of a negotiated and peaceful solution to this sovereignty dispute.