Argentina slams ‘NATO’ Falklands as UK gears up for war games

Saber rattling over the Falkland Islands, the scene of a bloody conflict between Argentina and Britain in 1982, is on the rise as the UK prepares for military drills off the coast of the South American nation.

Reports that the United Kingdom will conduct military exercises on the Falkland Islands, known as Las Malvinas in Argentina, has provoked a harsh response from the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who has called the islands "NATO's military base" in the region.

Eduardo Zuain, Argentina’s deputy foreign minister, summoned the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires to protest the "new show of military force" on what Buenos Aires considers to be "occupied territory."

A spokesman for the Embassy of Argentina in London commented: "The Government of the United Kingdom will conduct military exercises on occupied Argentine territory…including missile launchings from the Malvinas Islands.”

The spokesman called the upcoming British exercise “provocations and hostile acts” on behalf of an “extra-continental nuclear power.” Read more   HERE  

"They just never will get it will they? The Falkland Islands are and always will be British, as long as the Falkland Islanders choose to be `British`. If the UK want to exercise her forces on in and around the Falkland Islands then they have a legitimate right to do so, infact it would be negligent of them not to send a strong message to Argentina. It’s the same as the UK holding exercises of the coast of Dover. I think we should immediately stop giving an enemy two million pounds a year in overseas aid, I don’t see them objecting to that. The money should be taken from them and given to the MOD to spend on defending the Falklands."