President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wants a direct flight between Buenos Aires and the Falkland Islands to replace the current weekly flight linking the islands with the South American mainland via the "neutral" southern port of Punta Arenas in Chile.
"We don't want to cause harm to any community, not the islanders or the British," Kirchner said yesterday in her yearly address to Congress, adding that Argentina's diplomats have been instructed to approach Britain to permit the state airline Aerolíneas Argentinas to service the route, instead of the Chilean airline LAN.
The weekly LAN flight, the result of a 13-year-old compromise agreement with Britain, is a vital lifeline for the islands, not only for fresh produce, but also as the final leg of the long flight from Britain, which usually connects through Buenos Aires or some other major South American airport.
The president's announcement appeared conciliatory compared with recent rumours that her government had considered cancelling permission for Chilean airplanes to fly through Argentine airspace en route to the islands, claimed by Argentina as its own territory, "Las Malvinas".
That would have spelled an end to commercial flights for the islands because of the excessively long route Chilean planes would have to take over the South Atlantic to avoid Argentine airspace. The only other air route out of the islands would be the military flight to Britain via Ascension Island in the mid-Atlantic.
The presidential demand for a direct flight from Buenos Aires comes on the heels of the closure of Argentina's southern tourist port of Ushuaia to British cruise ships and a government-sponsored boycott of imports from Britain earlier this week.
Kirchner's government instructed Argentina's biggest firms to replace British imports with similar goods from other countries "that respect the territorial integrity" of Argentina.
"A direct flight from Buenos Aires is a good idea, but it seems to contradict not letting British curise ships dock," said opposition legislator Patricia Bullrich. "I think the president has to lower her aggressive tone."
"I think it's mistaken to use this to avoid talking about what needs to talked about," said another opposition legislator, Claudio Lozano. The president was harshly criticised by the opposition for not making a single reference to inflation in her three-hour speech to Congress.
Recent months have seen a steady increase in tension with Britain as the 30th anniversary of the 1982 war between the two countries approaches on 2 April. They started rising when Argentina closed its ports to ships carrying the Falklands flag, a ban supported by its South American neighbours, and continued as Argentina accused Britain of "militarising" the islands following the arrival of Prince William on a tour of duty there earlier this month.
The president's call for direct flights from Argentina may not be well received by Falklanders. "While I and many others would really like to be able to fly directly to Buenos Aires and then, perhaps, onwards, we have no desire to return to the pre-1982 condition of being entirely dependent on Argentina for external air access," said John Fowler, deputy editor of the Penguin News in Port Stanley.
"If the Argentine government wants to refute the accusation that they are trying to isolate us, they could start by lifting the various hindrances to maritime activity and then lifting the ban on charter flights, which dealt a huge blow to our tourist industry," said Fowler.
Falklands governor Nigel Haywood immediately rejected the idea of replacing the Chilean route with a direct flight to the Argentine capital. "I'm not completely sure why we should see this with any degree of enthusiasm at a time when every Argentine act against us seems hostile," Haywood told the Argentine newspaper Clarín. "I would like to see more flights from Chile."
