Just a few weeks ago, the issue of the Malvinas Islands once again took center stage on the international agenda. The Organization of American States (OAS), the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (C24), and the Mercosur Member and Associate States reiterated the call for Argentina and the United Kingdom to resume negotiations to resolve the sovereignty dispute peacefully.
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This renewed support offers an opportunity to reflect on a cause that runs through our history, defines our present, and dialogues with the future of our Nation.
Each new statement confirms that the Malvinas issue remains open and current. It also invites us to ask what Malvinas really means for Argentina. The answer, logically, goes beyond any commemoration.
April 2 and June 10 express central moments of our national memory. However, the responsibility to protect our sovereign rights transcends any anniversary. Malvinas is a cause for every day. And that conviction explains every step of our foreign policy.
What happened at the OAS and the United Nations has enormous political and diplomatic relevance. In these forums, it was clearly reaffirmed that there is a sovereignty dispute between the Argentine Republic and the United Kingdom over the Malvinas Islands, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands, and the surrounding maritime spaces, and that this controversy must be resolved through bilateral negotiations, by peaceful means and in accordance with international law.
It is clear that the resolutions do not resolve the controversy by themselves. Their value lies in keeping alive the obligation to negotiate established by the United Nations and increasingly exposing the United Kingdom’s decision to continue ignoring this mandate.
Maintaining this position requires ongoing work. Every consensus reached demands active, persistent, and technically solid diplomacy. Work is done. It is built. It is defended. From the Argentine Foreign Ministry, we bring the national position to all multilateral forums, engage in dialogue with governments from all regions, explain our titles, present arguments on the inapplicability of self-determination in this case, and strengthen a network of agreements that keeps an essential truth alive. Malvinas is not a solitary cause. History, law, and the concert of nations converge to uphold the legitimacy of our claim.
A just cause
Malvinas touches a deep chord in our nation because it goes beyond cartographic reading. It expresses our territorial integrity, our oceanic projection, our bicontinental condition, our wealth, and our influence over the South Atlantic.
Argentina cannot be thought of without including these dimensions. The South Atlantic is the strategic depth of our Nation. There, Patagonia, the sea, Antarctica, our continental shelf, and a decisive part of our future are linked.
On this conviction, President Javier Milei has reaffirmed the legitimate and non-negotiable nature of our claim. With that mandate as a compass, I am honored, as foreign minister, to take on the commitment to uphold this cause with firmness and consistency.
This is not just another management within the foreign agenda. It is an institutional responsibility that obliges us before the national Constitution, before our history, and before every Argentine who understands that sovereignty is defended with actions. And that obligation also requires demonstrating, again and again, why international law supports Argentina.
Our claim is supported by historical and legal grounds that Argentina has maintained uninterruptedly since its independence. As the heir to Spain’s rights, according to the principle of state succession, it exercised effective acts of authority over the islands, took formal possession in 1820, and created the Political and Military Command in 1829.
In 1833, the United Kingdom occupied the Islands through an act of force never consented to by our country, broke Argentine territorial integrity, expelled our national authorities and the legitimately established population, proceeded to populate the territory with its own settlers, and prevented the settlement of Argentine citizens.
This event was the origin of a colonial situation that persists to this day. Argentina never consented to that occupation and maintained a constant, peaceful protest based on law.
In this line, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2065, approved in 1965, marked a turning point. It formally recognized the existence of a sovereignty dispute and established the path of bilateral negotiation, with attention to the interests of the island inhabitants. Since then, the international community starts from an unavoidable legal fact. There is a sovereignty dispute pending resolution.
There is a mistaken idea that the 1982 South Atlantic conflict ended the sovereignty dispute. The facts show otherwise. Just five months after hostilities ended, the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 37/9, urging Argentina and the United Kingdom to resume negotiations. The conflict did not change the legal nature of the controversy nor resolve it. The international community then reaffirmed, as it continues to do today, that the only path remains a peaceful solution.
The Malvinas issue is neither just another decolonization case nor a matter of self-determination. It is a special and particular colonial situation, originating from the breach of Argentine territorial integrity. Time does not turn an illegitimate occupation into sovereignty. Nor will it divide the territorial unity of the Argentine Republic.
It is worth noting that the United Nations recognize both the principle of self-determination of peoples and the territorial integrity of States. The Organization itself determines which applies according to the characteristics of each case. More than six decades ago, Ambassador José María Ruda summarized this issue with clarity that remains fully valid by stating that Malvinas challenges the principle of territorial integrity of the Argentine Republic.
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That was precisely the interpretation adopted by the General Assembly in understanding that the controversy derives from the occupation of part of Argentine territory through an act of force consummated in 1833. For that reason, it never considered the principle of self-determination applicable and, instead, consistently held that the solution must be reached through negotiations between the parties, taking into account the interests of the island inhabitants.
The same logic explains why the United Nations distinguish between the interests of the island inhabitants and their wishes regarding sovereignty. Our national Constitution establishes that the recovery of full exercise of sovereignty must be carried out respecting the way of life of those who inhabit the islands and in accordance with the principles of international law. That commitment is permanent. A very different matter is to pretend that the population artificially implanted by the occupying power can decide the sovereignty of the disputed territory. For that reason, no referendum unilaterally organized by the United Kingdom can produce legal effects on a controversy whose resolution corresponds exclusively to Argentina and the United Kingdom through negotiations. We must not fall into the referendum trap.
The strength of our rights
At the OAS, by acclamation, our region once again qualified the Malvinas issue as a matter of permanent hemispheric interest. At the C24, all Latin American countries members of the Committee co-sponsored the resolution adopted by consensus. Added to this is the permanent support of Mercosur, CELAC, the Ibero-American Summits, the Brasilia Consensus, the South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, the G77 plus China group, SICA, and other multilateral spaces.
To all those countries that accompany us, I convey the gratitude of the Argentine Republic. Their commitment to international law strengthens the diplomatic capital that keeps the claim alive and raises the political cost of British indifference.
There is another equally important aspect. The United Nations not only urge Argentina and the United Kingdom to negotiate. Since Resolution 31/49 onwards, they have expressly requested that both parties refrain from introducing unilateral modifications while the dispute remains unresolved. The meaning of that mandate is unappealable. Neither party can take advantage of the situation to consolidate de facto positions or dispose of resources whose ownership remains subject to controversy.
However, the United Kingdom has persisted for decades in ignoring that call through exploration and exploitation of natural resources, granting licenses, and maintaining a disproportionate military presence.
Argentina has responded to these affronts with the same coherence with which it maintains its diplomatic position. Our legislation prohibits the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons on the Argentine continental shelf without authorization from Argentine authorities and provides sanctions for those who participate in such activities.
This decision seeks to protect resources that belong to all Argentines and whose use can only be fully defined when the dispute finds a solution in accordance with the law. Protecting our natural resources also means defending an essential part of the nation’s heritage.
The magnitude of the British military deployment is particularly eloquent. Around 3,000 people reside on the islands, and approximately 1,200 British troops remain deployed. That proportion shows the tactical nature of the occupation. For the United Kingdom, Malvinas is not an expression of its identity. It constitutes a strategic enclave from which it preserves military, economic, and geopolitical interests in one of the most relevant regions of the southern hemisphere.
Likewise, one of the most evident manifestations of non-compliance with that international mandate is seen in the Sea Lion project. In December 2025, Rockhopper Exploration Plc and Navitas Petroleum Development and Production Limited announced a purported final investment decision to develop that field, located in the North Malvinas Basin, based on fraudulent licenses issued by illegitimate authorities. Every unilateral British act confirms that the controversy remains open. Every international statement and resolution reminds what the only path to resolve it is.
Argentina rejected that unilateral action, reserved all its rights, and made clear that those who intervene or facilitate illegal activities in disputed areas are exposed to administrative, criminal sanctions, and other measures in national and international jurisdictions. Preserving our territorial integrity also means protecting Argentina’s oceanic projection.
A cause that transcends us
Malvinas also lives in the memory of our veterans, in the families of the fallen, and in every Argentine home where that word is spoken with respect. They gave this cause a moral content that no official can forget. Every diplomatic advance we achieve also honors that legacy. Their dedication demands public conduct and foreign policy worthy of their example.
That is why we will continue. We will be present at the United Nations, the OAS, every multilateral forum, and every bilateral conversation where it is necessary to defend our rights. We will respond unequivocally to every unilateral act, regardless of its nature. We will do so firmly and guided by the conviction that just causes require strategic patience, national unity, and perseverance.
Argentina maintains intact its negotiating vocation. I am convinced that the solution will be peaceful, through diplomatic means and in accordance with international law. That disposition coexists with an unalterable certainty. Our claim does not expire, does not resign, and is not abandoned.
Malvinas is history, territory, sea, memory, and destiny. It is a promise between generations. It is the voice of a nation that knows how to wait without giving up and knows how to claim without yielding.
Every day I renew that mandate with the awareness that few responsibilities can honor a foreign minister more than carrying the voice of this just cause to the world and defending it with the same firmness with which millions of compatriots embrace it. There lies one of the greatest honors and commitments an Argentine can assume. That is my commitment.
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By history, by law, and by conviction, the Malvinas are Argentine.
