LONDON – Britain lodged a claim to a large swath of South Atlantic seabed around the Falkland Islands yesterday, setting the stage for a battle with Argentina for control of potentially rich oil and gas reserves in the area.
The dispute over mineral rights could further embitter a longrunning row between Britain and Argentina over sovereignty over the islands, known in Spanish as the Malvinas, which led to war in 1982.
Britain filed its claim to an extensive area of seabed around the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, British officials said. The claim covers an area of about 1.2 million sq km (463,300 square miles), according to Lindsay Parson of Britain’s National Oceanography Centre, who helped prepare the filing.
Argentina filed its own claim with the UN commission last month. – (Reuters)