Falklands: “Argentine anger over Falklands” (Nick Ridley visit & leaseback)

Document type:	commentary
Document kind:	Article
Venue:	-
Source:	The Times , 24 November 1980
Journalist:	-
Editorial comments:	-
Importance ranking:	Minor
Word count:	189
Themes:	Defence (Falklands War 1982)

Argentine anger over Falklands

From Our Correspondent Buenos Aires, Nov 23

Argentine feathers have been ruffled by remarks of Mr Nicholas Ridley, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, who passed through Buenos Aires on his way to a week’s visit to the Falkland Islands, over which Argentina claims sovereignty.

�oeI would be very surprised,” Mr Ridley told reporters, �oeif the islanders were to accept total change in favour of Argentine sovereignty or economic control.”

Such a statement may seem self-evident to British ears or those of the islanders, but it is like a red rag to a bull for a nation whose educational system is designed to convince itself that it is the best.

The local press enjoyed an orgy of indignation, and the Foreign Ministry replied in a communiqu&é that the British Government had not made one positive move to solve the sovereignty question.

Mr Ridley told reporters that he had come to meet the islanders on whose total acceptance depended any solu- tion to the dispute.