Argentina Requests Access to Falklands

Argentina has stepped up diplomatic pressure on Great Britain to negotiate over the Falklands Islands over the past few months in the run-up to the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War, at the start of next month. In an address to Congress Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has now called for permission for the introduction of direct air services to the Falklands from the country’s capital Buenos Aires.

The Falklands conflict began on April 2, 1982, when Argentine forces invaded and occupied the Islands an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located over 450 km off the coast of mainland South America. The conflict resulted from a long-standing dispute over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The 74-day conflict came to an end on June 20 when British forces retook the South Sandwich Islands.

Since then only limited air services have been permitted into the Falklands, or the Malvinas as they are known to Argentina, and currently only LAN Airlines provides scheduled passenger links from Santiago, although special Royal Air Force charters also operate from the UK. Cristina Fernandez said in her Congress speech that she will now be seeking to renegotiate the air services agreement with the UK on flights to the Falkland Islands from South America. "We want flights to the islands from mainland Argentina - Buenos Aires - operated by our flag-carrier, Aerolineas Argentinas," she said.

The existing agreement came into force in 1999 and the UK Foreign office is expected to push for this arrangement to be maintained moving forward. However, there are reported concerns that Argentina may attempt to block the flights of LAN Airlines in the future to push its own cause for direct links.