Argentina gives UK two weeks to halt Falkland Islands oil project

Argentina has threatened to take legal action against the United Kingdom unless London halts an oil development project off the Falkland Islands.

Argentine President Javier Milei has given the UK two weeks to suspend work on the Sea Lion project, dpa reports.

If the project is not halted, Argentina will ask the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to order a temporary suspension, Milei said in a statement published on X.

The Sea Lion project, located in the North Falkland Basin, is being developed under British licences that Argentina considers illegitimate.

The archipelago, known in Argentina as the Islas Malvinas, has been a British Overseas Territory since 1833. Buenos Aires, however, bases its claim to the islands on the principle of legal succession from the former Spanish colonial empire.

In 1982, Argentina and the United Kingdom went to war over the South Atlantic archipelago after Argentina’s ruling military junta ordered its forces to occupy the islands.

Then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher responded by sending thousands of troops aboard dozens of warships. British forces recaptured the islands within 11 weeks, with hundreds of soldiers killed during the conflict.

By Tamilla Hasanova