UN Committee reiterates talks over Malvinas claim should resume soon

Foreign Minister Hector Timerman renewed today the Argentinean claim over the Malvinas islands during a meeting of the United Nations’ Decolonization Committee. He also questioned the unilateral exploitation of Malvinas natural resources and sustained that it was a “violation of international law and a disdainful gesture towards the international mandate.”

The Committee – composed by 29 states – reiterated their appeal for the negotiations to resume between Argentina and Great Britain in the hopes of finding a peaceful solution to the conflict as soon as possible.

Earlier this morning, Timerman described British Prime Minister David Cameron’s comments on Malvinas "as either unfortunate or an expression of British omnipotence."

He also remarked that "it is Great Britain’s decision to disobey the mandate issued by the United Nations which calls for cohabitation in the world” and reminded that "there are 16 colonial conflicts in the world, out of which 10 involve Great Britain as a colonial power”.

Timerman added that "if Great Britain does not sit down to talk peacefully and resolve this issue between the two countries, what they are doing is disobeying a UN mandate, not the wish of Argentines”.

In anticipation to the UN meeting, a group of Mexican intellectuals and politicians sent a letter to the UN Decolonization Committee, expressing their support to Argentina’s claim of sovereignty over Malvinas Islands. The Mexican Group of Solidarity with Malvinas wrote to the Committee Chairman, Francisco Carrión Mena, of Ecuador, stating its “firm support to the Argentine Republic’s legitimate rights in the sovereign dispute on the Malvinas, South Georgias and South Sandwich Islands and their surrounding maritime spaces”.

The note was signed by the President of the College of México, Javier Garciadiego Dantán; the head of the Autonomous University of México (UNAM), José Narro Robles; the chairman of the Mexican Council of Foreign Relations and former Foreign Minister Fernando Solana and the Senator and former Foreign Minister Rosario Green.