UK plays down Prince William's visit to Malvinas

Britain's chief of armed forces David Richards denied that the recent announcement of the deployment of Prince William to the Malvinas Islands was a “provocative act” towards Argentina.

"It wasn't and isn't designed to be," he said on an interview, in which he described that it is routine for Prince William, a helicopter pilot in the Royal Air Force, to be deployed over seas for practice, as any other pilot would.

Richards also said that the UK-Argentine relationship has been constructive so far, and explained that even though there’s a “clear disagreement” between both countries when it comes to the islands’ sovereignty, both sides are “firmly against repeating the mistake made in 1982,” when the two nations went to war.

Last Thursday the British government announced that Prince William was going to be deployed in the Malvinas for practice as the helicopter pilot of a search and rescue team for at least six weeks, in February and March 2012.