Argentina’s Vice-President has launched a blistering attack on plans by London and Buenos Aires to ease tensions over the Falkland Islands.
The UK’s foreign minister David Lammy and his Argentinian counterpart Diana Mondino held talks on the sidelines at the UN General Assembly, in a bid to build diplomatic bridges between the two countries.
The politicians agreed on a deal which includes resuming flights to the islands, restarting negotiations on a humanitarian project plan, and organising a trip for relatives of fallen soldiers to visit their war graves.
Flights from Sao Paulo in Brazil will now once a month stop in Córdoba, Argentina.
Furthermore, both countries have also agreed to cooperate on the conservation of fisheries.
However the agreement was slammed by Victoria Villarruel, who said the plans did not serve the interests of her country.
“Do they take us for fools?, she said in a withering critique over the weekend.
“They are getting material, concrete and immediate benefits, while they are offering us crumbs as emotional consolation and weakening our ability to negotiate.”
Ms Villarruel comes from a military family and is considered to be an arch-conservative.
Her support was vital in helping Javier Milei, Argentina’s president, secure victory in last year’s elections.
She has previously clashed with Milei over pay rises and even a football chant, that caused controversy in France.
Buenos Aires was forced to apologise after she accused France of being “colonialist” and the French “hypocrites”, following a row over a song sung by Argentina’s national team about Les Bleus and that was judged to contain racist lyrics.
A politician from the Falkland Islands told the Express earlier this summer that there would be greater economic opportunities for Argentinian business on the island if Buenos Aires dropped its sanctions against them.
Teslyn Barkman is a member of the Falklands Legislative Assembly (MLA), which is made up of just eight members.
Speaking to the Express in July about new economic opportunities surrounding the Sea Lion oilfield, she said Argentina would miss out on any such benefits.
“Argentina has created a list of illegal economic sanctions and a bunch of domestic laws that target businesses that operate in the Falklands,” she explained.
“So, by their own doing, I suppose, they restrict businesses from investing here because they don’t recognise our people as existing, which, as you can imagine, is rather a confusing state of affairs.”