Argentina has pledged to regain control over the Falkland Islands, an archipelago in the Atlantic that has been at the center of a territorial dispute with the UK for nearly 200 years. The vow came after London returned one of its overseas territories, the Chagos Islands, to the island nation of Mauritius on Thursday.
Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino took to X (formerly Twitter) later in the day to hail London’s decision to pass sovereignty of the Chagos in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, which came after decades of negotiations.
“We welcome this step in the right direction and the end to outdated practices,” Mondino said, apparently referring to the UK still controlling some of the territories it occupied during colonial times.
”We will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas (the Argentine name for the Falklands). The Malvinas were, are, and will always be Argentine,” she added.
The disputed South Atlantic archipelago is around 375 miles (600km) off the Argentine mainland. Buenos Aires lays claim to the islands, saying they were part of the territory when Argentina gained independence from Spain in 1816. The UK has ruled the archipelago since 1833. Argentina and the UK fought a ten-week war over the islands in 1982, which claimed almost 1,000 lives and ended in a British victory.
Falklands Governor Alison Blake took to X on Thursday, saying that the UK had an “unwavering commitment” to defend its sovereignty over the islands. She went on to describe the historical context of the Falklands and the Chagos as “very different.”
The Legislative Assembly of the Falklands also issued a statement, noting that the locals, who number about 3,600, had chosen to remain under British control in a 2013 referendum.
Argentine President Javier Milei vowed in May to get the islands back through diplomatic channels and admitted that it could take decades to regain sovereignty from the UK. In April, on the 42nd anniversary of the Falklands War, he promised a “roadmap” for the islands to become Argentine.