𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Argentina’s president has demanded talks with Andy Burnham over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. In his combative speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Javier Milei hit out at the “useless organisation” over its failure to make the UK hand over the British Overseas Territory as he threatened to “take matters into our own hands”.

He said: “An organisation established to defend the territorial sovereignty of its members decided to look the other way with regard to the situation of the Malvinas. I have come to tell you that Argentina is not going to sit around waiting for the UN and the international community to live up to their own mandate. We’re going to take matters into our own hands.”

Using Argentina’s name for the Falklands, Mr Milei went on: “The Malvinas for us are a national cause.”

He added: “We call on the United Kingdom to resume negotiations with a view to finding a peaceful solution to the sovereignty dispute as required by international law, we also reiterate our invitation to proceed without delay to an exchange of views with a view to resolving the issue concerning the aforementioned dispute over the exploitation of our natural resources.”

It comes after the Prime Minister insisted the UK “will stand firm in the face of any threats” to the Falkland Islands during his meeting with US president Donald Trump in New York.

Mr Burnham’s comments came after Mr Milei used a national televised address to reiterate his country’s claim to the South Atlantic archipelago.

He said: “I didn’t react immediately when the Argentinian president made his recent comments, but in this forum, I think it’s right for me to set out the position clearly, and the clear position is: we will stand firm in the face of any threats.

“We will defend the right of the Falkland Islanders to self-determination and to remain British.

“And I just wanted the president to know directly from me, that’s the clear British position, and he very much understood what I was saying.”

The Falklands War broke out in 1982 when Argentina invaded and led to two months of fighting before Buenos Aires surrendered.

The people of the Falkland Islands voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a UK overseas territory in a 2013 referendum.