Falklands moves 'entirely routine'

William Hague denied commemorations marking the 30th anniversary of the Falklands conflict could be provocative
12 April 2012

Deployments of a warship and Prince William to the Falkland Islands are "entirely routine", the Foreign Secretary said.

William Hague told the Sky News Murnaghan programme that commemorations would go ahead to mark the 30-year anniversary of the Falklands conflict.

But he said Britain supported the islanders' self-determination and would seek to prevent Argentina from "raising the diplomatic temperature" on the issue.

Mr Hague said: "(The events) are not so much celebrations as commemorations.

"I think Argentina will also be holding commemorations of those who died in the conflict.

"Since both countries will be doing that I don't think there is anything provocative about that.

"Nor is there anything provocative about entirely routine military movements. They are entirely routine - of course our ships regularly visit the South Atlantic. We don't normally make any comment on the deployment of our nuclear submarines.

"But our Naval vessels regularly visit the South Atlantic. Prince William is on a routine deployment that is part of his job.

"We will resist the diplomatic efforts of Argentina to raise the temperature on this and when I was in the Caribbean a couple of weeks ago, the Caribbean nations agreed to support a self-determination of the Falkland islanders which is what we believe in.

"We will put the case for that around the world, including for Latin American and Caribbean nations whenever we get the opportunity."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in