ARGENTINE President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner says she has asked for the Pope’s intervention in the Falklands dispute between her country and the UK.
Visiting the Vatican, Mrs. Kirchner said she had asked the Pope to promote dialogue between the two sides.
Argentine Pope Francis, who will be formally installed as pontiff at a Mass today, in the past has said the Falkland Islands, a United Kingdom overseas territory, belongs to Argentina.
“I asked for his intervention to avoid problems that could emerge from the militarisation of Great Britain in the south Atlantic,” Mrs. Kirchner told reporters after having lunch with the Pope.
“We want a dialogue and that’s why we asked the pope to intervene so that the dialogue is successful.”
According to the BBC, there has been no word yet as to how the Pope responded to the appeal.
In a referendum held a week ago, people in the Falkland Islands voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a UK overseas territory.
Before Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected, the 76-year-old was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.
At a Mass last year, he told Argentine veterans of the Falklands War: “We come to pray for all who have fallen, sons of the Homeland who went out to defend their mother, the Homeland, and to reclaim what is theirs.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron said last week that he “respectfully” disagreed with the view expressed in the past by Pope Francis that the Falkland Islands had been “usurped” by the UK.
Mrs Kirchner is the first head of state the new pope has met. She presented him with a mate gourd and straw for drinking traditional Argentine tea.
The two also kissed, and Mrs Kirchner remarked afterwards: “Never in my life has a pope kissed me!’’
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