British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged yesterday that Britain’s support for the Falkland Islands would remain steadfast in the years ahead.
Mr Cameron speaking on the 30th anniversary of the end of the Falklands War, when Argentina sent an invasion force on to the islands, said that the people of the territory had succeeded in creating a future for their children despite “aggressive threats” from outside.
The anniversary of the end of the 74-day conflict between Britain and Argentina was a chance to remember all those who lost their lives in the fighting and to look forward to what the future held, Mr Cameron said.
“It’s a time to pay tribute to the 255 UK servicemen who paid the ultimate price so that the people of the Falkland Islands could live in peace and in freedom.
“And it’s a time to express our huge debt of gratitude to all those who showed such astonishing courage to recapture the islands.”
He added: “For the last 180 years, 10 generations have called the Falkland Islands home and have strived hard to secure a prosperous future for their children.
“And despite the aggressive threats from over the water, they are succeeding.”
Mr Cameron said Britain would continue to support the people of the Falklands, whose government has pledged a referendum on their “political status” in the first half of next year, under the UN charter.
“Our resolve to support the Falkland Islanders has not wavered in the last 30 years and it will not in the years ahead,” he said.
The referendum is a bid to end the bitter territorial dispute over the islands, which has escalated this year as the anniversary is marked in the background of economic worries across the globe.
Mr Cameron said the referendum would establish the definitive choice of the Falkland Islanders once and for all.
“And just as we have stood up for the Falkland Islanders in the past, so we will in the future,” he added.
The islands’ government said on Tuesday that the residents had no wish to be ruled by Argentina.
“I have no doubt that the people of the Falklands wish for the islands to remain a self-governing overseas territory of the United Kingdom,” said Gavin Short, chairman of the Falklands’ legislative assembly.
Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner led a delegation of more than 90 Argentine diplomats and officials at the UN decolonisation committee in New York yesterday.
Argentina has said Britain has “a duty” to negotiate the future of the islands, which lie 298 kilometres from their shores (nearly four times the distance of Malta from Sicily).