Milei Reasserts Argentina's Falklands Claim at UN, Calls for Talks with UK

Argentine President Javier Milei used his address to the UN General Assembly in New York to restate Argentina's claim to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas, and to press Britain to return to negotiations.

"The Malvinas is a national cause for us," Milei told the assembly, describing the long-running dispute as a test of the gap between the words of international institutions and the realities they are meant to address.

He pointed to Resolution 3149, adopted by the assembly five decades ago, which called on the parties to refrain from unilateral changes while the dispute remained unresolved. Milei said the situation had not changed in the intervening years, while unilateral modifications continued.

He singled out the Sea Lion Project, which he said is moving toward oil extraction on the Argentine Continental Shelf in the North Malvinas Basin under British licences. Argentina rejects those licences as illegal and illegitimate, he said, adding that any activity not authorised by Argentina would be unlawful under international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and under Argentine domestic law.

Milei also raised the status of the islands' population, arguing that the principle of self-determination does not apply because the inhabitants were implanted by the occupying power on territory whose sovereignty is in dispute. That principle, he said, exists to liberate colonised peoples rather than to legitimise situations arising from colonisation.

Addressing the United Kingdom directly, he reiterated Argentina's call to resume negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the sovereignty dispute.

The remarks come amid rising tensions with Britain over the archipelago. Earlier this month, Milei escalated the dispute by vowing new measures to halt an oil project near the British-controlled islands, and he welcomed comments by US President Donald Trump suggesting Washington could reconsider its neutral position on the sovereignty question.

His government last week introduced a sweeping security bill that would toughen sanctions on companies exploiting resources around the islands without Argentine authorisation, create a national security council chaired by Milei, and expand the military's role in protecting critical Argentine infrastructure.

In his speech, Milei said Argentina would not wait for the UN and the international community to live up to their own mandate. He was sharply critical of the world body, describing it as a useless organisation that serves only to sustain a caste of arrogant bureaucrats posing as well-intentioned officials.

He closed with a blessing for the peoples of the world and the Argentine Republic, and the phrase "long live freedom."