United Kingdom: The Foreign Secretary of Unite Kingdom David Cameron is preparing to visit the islands, which will be the first visit by a cabinet minister since 2016. Last month, Argentina’s President Javier Milei has asked for the South Atlantic Ocean islands to be handed over.
The trip comes ahead of the G20 foreign ministers’ summit, which includes Argentina and the UK. Lord Cameron reiterated the UK Government’s long-standing position that the islands’ sovereignty is inalienable while its inhabitants remain British.
Cameron said that, “The Falkland Islands are a valued part of the British family, and we are clear that as long as they want to remain part of the family, the issue of sovereignty will not be up for discussion. The Falkland Islanders should be proud of the modern, prosperous community they have built.”
The foreign secretary’s visit comes in the context of Argentina’s continued calls for the autonomous territory to be given to Buenos Aires. After a meeting last month with President Milei, who believes his country has inalienable sovereignty over the islands which Argentina calls the Islas Malvinas, the Foreign Office has commented that, “they would agree to disagree, and do so politely.”
The islands, 8,000 miles from the UK and 300 miles off the Argentine coast, claimed the lives of 255 British soldiers, three islanders and 649 Argentine officers in 1982. There was a 90 percent turnout in a referendum held in 2013, when Cameron was the prime minister, in which 1,513 islanders voted for the UK to remain an overseas territory, while three voted against.
Previously Milei has proposed a Hong Kong-style handover and emphasized that war “is not a solution.” Lord Cameron is expected to pay tribute to those who lost their lives during the conflict, meet the Falkland Islands government leaders, and greet the islands’ penguins in the capital, Stanley.
Michael Fallon, then defence secretary, was the last cabinet member to visit the islands in 2016. Following the trip, Lord Cameron will visit Paraguay, which will mark the first visit by a British foreign secretary to a South American nation. He will then attend a meeting of G20 nations, including Russia’s Sergei Lavrov, in Brazil.
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