Argentina’s president said Wednesday [19 Mar 2014] that the U.S. and Britain displayed double standards with their positions on Crimea and the Falkland Islands, undermining efforts to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity.<\/p>\n
During a speech in Paris, Cristina Fernandez compared the referendum in the Black Sea peninsula next to Russia to last year’s referendum by Falkland Islanders to remain a British territory. The southern Atlantic islands are known in Spanish as the “Islas Malvinas” and Argentina insists that Britain usurped them 180 years ago.<\/p>\n
“Something that is fundamental for preserving world peace, for respecting international law, is to not have a double standard when it is time to make decisions. You can’t be in favor of territorial integrity in Crimea and against territorial integrity with the Malvinas in Argentina,” Fernandez said.<\/p>\n
While most Latin American nations support Argentina’s position on the islands, citizens of the Falkland Islands Government voted by 99.8 percent to remain British.<\/p>\n
That referendum was unopposed by the United States, which recognizes the U.K.’s “de-facto administration” of the islands while remaining officially neutral on the competing territorial claims.<\/p>\n
She added that Crimea was once part of the former Soviet Union and that Western arguments had been weakened for not having supported Argentina’s case in the Falkland dispute.<\/p>\n
“We support territorial integrity \u2014 that’s why we voted the way we voted in the Security Council,” she said, referring to Argentina joining the council’s rejection of the referendum in Crimea.<\/p>\n
“We either respect the same principles for all, or we live in a world without law, where the most powerful get their way,” Fernandez told journalists.<\/p>\n
The issue of Crimea overshadowed a working lunch expected to focus on ways to tackle Argentina’s growing international debt.<\/p>\n
97 percent of voters in Sunday’s referendum said they wanted to separate from Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Argentina owes $9.5 billion to the Paris Club, a group of the world’s wealthiest countries that has in recent decades helped other nations with debt problems.<\/p>\n
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Associated Press writer Michael Warren in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n