Falklands faux pas: Was pope tricked into ‘supporting’ UK-Argentina talks on

The Ambassador, who had a private audience with the Pope in December past year, said supporters for talks included the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness, who she had spoken to about it.

Tensions between the two nations culminated in the Argentine invasion of the Falklands in 1982.

The Argentine army seized the islands in 1982 only to be defeated by a British force, but Argentina still claims sovereignty over the South Atlantic territory.

“With his low tone but strong voice he only asked for the United Kingdom and Argentina to sit to dialogue”, Fernandez assured as he questioned opposition PRO party lawmaker Laura Alonso who on Wednesday following the release of the controversial picture said in Twitter that the Pope “is wrong again”. All member states recognised the existence of a sovereignty dispute over the Islands between the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom.

“The entire global community is calling for dialogue”. On a turnout of 91.94%, an overwhelming 99.8% voted to remain a British territory, with only three votes against.

Buenos Aires: Pope Francis was drawn into the long-running debate over the Falkland Islands on Wednesday, when he was photographed holding a sign calling for dialogue on the islands’ future.

A Vatican spokesman suggested that the Argentinian pope may not even have been aware of what was written on the placard. Since becoming pope in 2013, however, Francis has refrained from talking about the dispute.

While the pope has not discussed the Falklands dispute since his appointment in March 2013, he was known to speak in emotional and sometimes nationalistic terms about the islands when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Hoyo, however, told Argentina’s Clarin newspaper that “when he (the Pope) passed by, I explained what this was about and he kindly took the placard and got the picture taken. He could have chosen not to do it, but he did”.

Soon after the photo went viral online, Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner tweeted the image to her four million followers.