Rumours grow about CFK's announcement: A weekly flight from Argentina to the islands?

Rumours continue to surface about the nature of President Fernández de Kirchner’s announcement this afternoon, which will revolve around the Malvinas Islands. Foreign Ministry sources said that, as the UK expects the President to increase the verbal escalation between both countries, her announcement could actually include a new strategy to appeal directly to the islanders. 

Only yesterday the Argentine ambassador to Chile, Ginés González García, categorically denied the rumours that the local Government was considering to ban LAN flights going from Chile to the Malvinas from entering the Argentine airspace, a move that the UK has now come to expect in the conflict. 

According to sources, several former diplomats advised the Government on how to continue their claim over the Malvinas sovereignty. Some of them theorized that the best move is to create a direct link between the islanders and Argentina without having the UK as an mediator. “Cameron said that the islanders are masters of their own destiny, so let’s be friends with them again,” a diplomat who advised the President said.

Malvinas Governor Nigel Haywood has already said a local Government’s decision to complicate maritime communications and potentially ending the Chilean flights to the islands would be a miscalculation.

Diplomatic sources also ventured to suggest that Fernández de Kirchner could announce a proposal for a weekly Aerolíneas Argentinas flight between the Malvinas and Río Gallegos or Buenos Aires. 

Such proposal could suggest that the Government has no intention of isolating the islands’ population by banning LAN from using the Argentine airspace.

According to sources, the new strategy would not be about ending flights to the islands, but on the contrary, offering the islanders a new gateway to the continent through Argentine soil.