Falklands referendum: Buenos Aires stays silent on result

Argentina President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (Getty Images)

The sound of British triumphalism boomed out of the Falklands today, but in Argentina things were surprisingly quiet. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, usually so voluble on all matters Malvinas, had nothing to say about the referendum result.

Her Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman, who on a recent visit to London told reporters: “The Falklands islanders do not exist. What exists [are] British citizens who live in the Islas Malvinas”, was similarly silent.

Even the Argentinian press barely marked it, with only the daily paper Clarin carrying any words on its front page and even then just a small box on the front page with the headline: “Predictably, the kelpers [islanders] vote to stay with the British.”

David Cameron told Buenos Aires to take “careful note” of the islanders’ wishes and in doing so managed to elicit the only official pronouncement from Argentina, although the ambassador to London, Alicia Castro, piped up to dismiss the vote as “a ploy that has no legal value”.