Argentina threatens UK with legal action over Falklands oil exploration

Argentina's president has threatened the UK with legal action over an oil project off the coast of the Falklands.

Javier Milei has set a two-week deadline for drilling to stop on the Sea Lion project, an offshore oilfield being developed by Israeli and British companies.

If work does not stop, Argentina would ask the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a Hamburg-based maritime court, to order a temporary halt to the project.

"Argentina will not stand idly by," the presidential statement said, accusing the UK of causing "irreversible and irreparable" harm.

The tribunal, an independent court established under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, can issue legally binding emergency orders, but has no means of enforcing them.

Earlier this month, Mr Milei used a national televised address to reassert his country's claim to the Falklands, reigniting a long-running dispute over the territory.

He said the islands "are our future", and also announced plans to sanction oil companies working off the islands, known in Argentina as Las Malvinas.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York last week, Mr Milei accused the international body of neglecting the Falklands dispute and denounced the oil project as an illegal exploitation of Argentine resources.

He also dismissed the wishes of islanders, who voted overwhelmingly in 2013 to remain as a British Overseas Territory, arguing the principle of self-determination did not apply "since the population was implanted by the occupying power on a territory whose sovereignty is in dispute".

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who was among the world leaders at the gathering, responded at the time: "We will stand firm in the face of any threats.

"We will defend the right of the Falkland Islanders to self-determination and to remain British."

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The UK rejects Argentina's sovereignty claim, arguing the islanders have the right to determine their own future and develop their natural resources.

Mr Milei has been emboldened since US President Donald Trump suggested he could reconsider Washington's neutral stance on the sovereignty of the islands.

Although the US is formally neutral, Washington provided support for Britain's campaign to retake the islands after the Argentinian invasion in 1982.

It sparked the Falklands War, which led to 255 British service deaths in just over 70 days. Some 649 Argentine military personnel and three Falkland Islanders also died during the conflict.

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