The Argentine government has said that it will file criminal charges against oil company Navitas Petroleum for operating in seas off the Falkland Islands.
The move came just days after Argentine President Javier Milei said he would sanction oil companies drilling in the British overseas territory in the south-west Atlantic Ocean.
Reacting to the news, Foreign Office Minister Kirsty McNeill insisted that there could be “no doubt” about the British government’s commitment to the Falkland Islanders.
Sovereignty of the archipelago remains disputed between the UK and Argentina more than 40 years after a British military task force ejected Argentine forces which had invaded the territory in 1982.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, McNeill said that “the decision by the Falkland Islands government to pursue hydrocarbon production is a commercial decision for them to take alongside the commercial companies involved”.
She added that “the future of the Falkland Islands is for Falkland Islanders to determine”.
The simmering dispute between Britain and Argentina over the Falklands heated up last week, when Milei said in a speech to the nation that the “winds of change” favoured Argentina’s claim to the islands.
Milei has, in the past, been criticised by Argentine veterans of the 1982 conflict for being “too soft” on the Falklands, which Argentines call Las Malvinas.
In his speech on Thursday evening local time, Milei restated his government’s position on the territory, saying “the Malvinas are Argentine, historically and legally… there’s no debate about that.”
The president described drilling for oil in the archipelago as a “clear and urgent danger” to Argentine sovereignty.
He also dismissed the result of a 2013 referendum in which 99.8% of the islands’ residents voted in favour of the Falklands remaining a British oversees territory.
Milei argued that they were living on land which had been “usurped” by the British and therefore “have no legitimate right to self-determination”.
