At the annual session of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, Diana Mondino today ratified the country's sovereign right over the Malvinas Islands and demanded that the United Kingdom begin diplomatic negotiations with Argentina to end the illegitimate occupation of the national territory.

During the session of the Special Committee, a draft resolution presented by Chile , Bolivia , Chile , Cuba , Ecuador , Nicaragua and Venezuela was discussed that recognizes the country's sovereign claims and urges Great Britain to accept a diplomatic negotiation table proposed by the UN. for decades.

The initiative of the Latin American states that make up the commission was approved by consensus , and the support of China, Brazil and Paraguay stood out, which presented its affirmative motion on behalf of Mercosur .

After the announcement of the approval of the project by consensus, they gave the floor to the Argentine chancellor. Mondino thanked the international support, and raised his voice a little to say: “The Malvinas are and will be Argentinas.”

Before this short participation to recognize global support , the chancellor had assured that the United Kingdom is an illegitimate occupier of the national territory and that it arbitrarily uses the principle of free self-determination of peoples to justify a fact of appropriation that it has maintained since beginning of the 19th century.

“191 years have now passed since the beginning of the illegal occupation of the Islands by the United Kingdom, and almost 59 since resolution 2065. The time that has passed has not diminished in any way the validity of our claim , nor modified our conviction that "This prolonged controversy must be resolved peacefully, through bilateral negotiations between my country and the United Kingdom," said the Foreign Minister at the UN.

After explaining the legal reasons, the chancellor reaffirmed the political decision made by all democratic governments since 1983, when the method to follow was defined to ensure that the Argentine flag flies again in the South Atlantic Islands.

“ This is a bilateral negotiation to reach a peaceful solution to the sovereignty dispute, taking into account the provisions and objectives of the United Nations Charter, resolution 1514, as well as the interests of the inhabitants of the Islands,” Mondino assured.

Next, the chancellor advanced the alleged legal basis that London uses to ensure that it has a legitimate right to the Malvinas. This is the principle of self-determination of peoples , a current legal institute that does not fit in the case of the South Atlantic Islands.

Mondino thus refuted the arguments that Great Britain has deployed since the 19th century: “The current composition of the population of the Islands is the result of colonization by the United Kingdom, which after forcibly occupying the territory and expelling the authorities Argentines, implemented measures to prevent the settlement of Argentines from the continental territory and favor the establishment in the Islands of British subjects, with the purpose of defining a demographic composition tailored to their interests," said the minister.

And he added: “This population has not been subjected, dominated or subjugated by a colonial power nor does it constitute a population ethnically and culturally distinct from the occupying power (...) In the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, the object of decolonization is not the population , with whom we have no differences, but the territory .

With the precise objective of weaving together all the legal arguments that support the national position, Mondino also cited Ambassador José María Ruda - a renowned expert in international law - to describe why Argentina demands full sovereignty in the Malvinas Islands.

“ The principle of territorial integrity is at stake, broken by the British occupation of that part of Argentine territory,” the minister emphasized before the Committee.

From this perspective, Mondino pointed out - without euphemisms - the position of Javier Milei's government: “This characterization is due to the fact that part of the territory of an independent State – the Argentine Republic – was usurped through an act of force perpetrated by the United Kingdom in the year 1833, contrary to the international law of the time, immediately protested and never consented , never consented to by Argentina.”

The chancellor spoke at the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, where a draft resolution presented by Bolivia , Chile , Cuba , Ecuador , Nicaragua and Venezuela was being debated. This project has six articles that propose a negotiation table between Argentina and the United Kingdom to end a territorial dispute that London has been dragging on -without legal arguments- for a very long time .

“The way to put an end to the special and particular colonial situation in the question of the Malvinas Islands (Malvina Islands) is the peaceful and negotiated solution of the sovereignty dispute that exists between the Governments of the Argentine Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain. "Britain and Northern Ireland," says the draft resolution being discussed today at the UN.

And it completes: “Despite the broad international support for a negotiation between the Governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom that includes all aspects regarding the future of the Malvinas Islands (Malvina Islands), the resolutions of the General Assembly on this issue.”

Lined up alongside the Minister of Foreign Affairs was the Argentine ambassador to the UN, Ricardo Lagorio ; Paola Di Chiaro , Secretary of the Malvinas, Antarctica and South Atlantic, and Gerry Díaz Bartolome, Director of Strategic Communication of the Foreign Ministry.

Also present at the Committee session were Mónica Urquiza -vice governor of the province of Tierra del Fuego- and the Malvinas War veteran, Raúl Rosales.

It was not the first time that the UN reviewed the Malvinas Case. Since 1965 - Arturo Illia's government - the United Nations General Assembly has voted ten successive resolutions recognizing the existence of the territorial dispute and urging Argentina and the United Kingdom to begin negotiations.

And starting in 1989 - Raúl Alfonsín's mandate -, the complex situation in the South Atlantic Islands was addressed by the Special Committee on Decolonization, which called on the parties in conflict to end territorial differences at a diplomatic dialogue table.

London always rejected the UN proposal, citing the principle of self-determination of peoples.

This argument of English diplomacy has no basis in international standards. The principle of self-determination requires the existence of a people under foreign domination , a sine qua non condition that would not apply in the Malvinas Case: the inhabitants who occupy the South Atlantic Islands were never at the mercy of a colonialist power, and even less so with Argentina. .

In reality, Argentina and the United Kingdom are involved in a special case of decolonization , and the only way to resolve this conflict is through diplomatic negotiations . A scenario that Argentina proposes and the United Kingdom rejects , despite successive United Nations resolutions.