After Cup win, Argentina airs complaint over English ship near Falklands
HMS Medway, based in the Falkland Islands, was accused of breaching bilateral agreements in a July 13 note submitted to the UK embassy. (Royal Navy pic)
BUENOS AIRES: Following their World Cup semi-final victory, Argentina’s foreign minister said Wednesday that Buenos Aires had filed a formal protest over a British warship near the Falkland Islands.
Foreign minister Pablo Quirno posted on X to express “the strongest rejection” of the United Kingdom’s HMS Medway’s “unconsulted and illegal” passage through Argentine territorial waters, alleging a lack of proper notification.
Quirno said the Medway, which is based in the Falkland Islands, is accused of violating bilateral agreements in a July 13-dated diplomatic note of protest submitted to the United Kingdom’s embassy in Buenos Aires.
“In diplomacy, work is not shouted about like goals, but we are driven by the same conviction: the pride of being Argentine and the constant defense of our interests,” Quirno said in a statement.
Before the post went up, Argentine president Javier Milei told local broadcaster Radio Mitre that the World Cup victory was just “a football match.”
“We are making enormous progress on the diplomatic front. We have managed to get the UN to force England to sit down and talk with us, but let’s not confuse the score: This is a football match,” Milei said, after celebrating the team’s “glorious step” in advancing to the World Cup finals.
After the thrilling Argentina-England match, which ended 2-1, Albiceleste players celebrated by unfurling a banner that read: “The Falklands are Argentine.”
Argentina and the United Kingdom went to war over the South Atlantic archipelago in 1982, in a conflict that left 649 Argentines and 255 Britons dead.
Argentina will face Spain in the World Cup final on Sunday in New Jersey.
