Argentina takes Britain’s oil drilling off Falklands island case to UN
By ANIThursday, February 25, 2010
LONDON - Argentina has taken the case of Britain’s oil exploration off the Falkland Islands to the United Nations.
In a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York, Argentinean Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana spelled out Buenos Aires’s demands of an immediate cessation of the British drilling for oil and gas off the Falkland Islands.
His meeting has come just a day after mobilising Latin American and Caribbean support, The Guardian reports.
Taiana said the meeting was “very cordial, positive” but did not say if Ban had agreed to pressure London over the islands’ sovereignty.
Argentina’s next step would be to table a resolution at the UN general assembly.
The UN has called for talks between Britain and Argentina but has little power to intervene without the backing of the Security Council.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said: “It is not possible that Argentina is not the owner while England is, despite being 14,000 km away.”
After the mainstream Latin leaders threw their weight behind Buenos Aires, British officials privately admitted frustration.
“This position is underpinned by the principle of self-determination as set out in the UN Charter. We are also clear that the Falkland Islands government is entitled to develop a hydrocarbons industry within its waters, and we support this legitimate business in Falklands’ territory,” UK’s permanent representative to the UN, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, said. (ANI)
