Buenos Aires will sue if the British-Israeli operation near the disputed islands doesn\u2019t stop, President Javier Milei has said<\/p>\n
Argentinian President Javier Milei has demanded that Britain cease oil exploration near the disputed Falkland Islands, threatening legal action if London fails to comply.
\nBuenos Aires maintains that the South Atlantic archipelago, which it calls the Malvinas, is part of its territory, despite it being administered by the UK since 1833.
\nThe two countries fought a brief war over the territory in 1982 after Argentine forces seized the islands and Britain sent a naval task force to retake them. In a 2013 referendum, Falkland Islanders overwhelmingly voted to remain a British overseas territory, a vote Buenos Aires does not recognize as resolving the sovereignty dispute.
\nMilei said in a post on X on Monday that he had given instructions to the Foreign Ministry and legal experts \u201cto initiate international arbitration against the UK for the illegal plundering of our resources through the Sea Lion Project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
UK issues Falklands\/Malvinas defense warning<\/p>\n
\u201cIf in 2 weeks the UK does not halt the illegitimate exploitation, we will go to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS),\u201d he warned.
\nThe Sea Lion oil field lies around 220 km (137 miles) north of the Falkland Islands and is estimated to hold around 1.7 billion barrels of oil. British company Rockhopper and Israeli firm Navitas, which are developing the $2.2 billion project, are planning to begin drilling on site in early 2028.
\nITLOS is an independent court established under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Decisions by the Hamburg-based tribunal are legally binding, although it lacks the means to make countries comply with them.
\nThe British government has said it fully supports the companies involved in the Sea Lion project, insisting that the people of the Falklands have the \u201cright to develop their natural resources as they see fit.\u201d Rockhopper and Navitas also previously shrugged off Argentina\u2019s complaints about the project, arguing that they are operating under a valid license issued by the UK.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
US threatening UK over Falklands \u2013 Telegraph<\/p>\n
Earlier in September, Buenos Aires initiated sanctions proceedings against 60 people and companies \u200cover being involved in oil exploration near the Falklands.
\nThe Argentinean government has doubled down on its claim to the islands after US President Donald Trump, who previously called Milei his \u201cfavorite president,\u201d said in late August that Washington\u2019s longstanding neutral stance on the status of the Falklands was under review.
\nMilei dedicated most of his speech at the UN General Assembly in New York last week to the Falklands, saying that Argentina could \u201ctake matters into our own hands\u201d if the global body fails to act against the Sea Lion Project.
\nUK Defense Secretary Wes Streeting responded by accusing the Argentinean leader of reciting the \u201csame old bogus propaganda\u201d and insisting that Britain has \u201cthe ability to defend\u201d the Falklands militarily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Buenos Aires will sue if the British-Israeli operation near the disputed islands doesn\u2019t stop, President Javier Milei has said Argentinian President Javier Milei has demanded that Britain cease oil exploration…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t