World

UK Urges Interpol to Reject Argentina’s Red Notice Requests Over Falklands Oil Project

By Daniel Boffey

Britain has asked Interpol to refuse Argentina’s requests to arrest people linked to a large oil project off the Falkland Islands. The UK says the requests, which include British nationals, are politically motivated and part of an effort to pressure companies out of the Falklands. The Sea Lion project, located in the north Falklands basin, could triple the islands’ GDP, but Argentine President Javier Milei has vowed to block it. The UK government’s letter to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon urges the organisation to treat the requests with caution, citing Article 3 of Interpol’s constitution, which forbids political intervention. Interpol has replied that it will respect that article. Red notices are requests to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition; member states decide whether to act on them. Nearly 20,000 red notices were issued last year. The UK’s Foreign Office has not yet commented. The tension between the UK and Argentina over the Falklands has reached a level not seen since the 1982 war, which ended with 649 Argentine, 255 British, and three Falkland Islander deaths. Argentina continues to claim sovereignty over the 700 islands, rejecting a 2013 referendum in which 99.8% of the 3,600 residents voted to remain a British territory. Argentina has initiated criminal proceedings against Israeli company Navitas and its British partner Rockhopper Exploration, the core companies in the Sea Lion project. A draft Argentine bill would expand sanctions to affiliates, financial intermediaries, shareholders, and suppliers, and could also target those involved in the Falklands fishing industry. The archipelago lies 300 miles east of Argentina’s southern Patagonian coast. Workers in the oil and fisheries sectors fear they could be targeted if they travel to South America, where there is support for Buenos Aires’s sovereignty claim. Argentina is expected to request arbitration under Annex VII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) over the oil project. On 28 September, Milei gave the UK a two‑week deadline to stop the project or face such legal action. The deadline passed on Monday, and Argentine newspapers said an application for arbitration would follow. Buenos Aires will claim that the UK is breaching a UN resolution that invites negotiation over the sovereignty dispute and that it has made unilateral modifications to the situation. It will seek a binding ruling that the UK must stop drilling. UK government sources say UNCLOS will not address a sovereignty dispute. At a public meeting on Monday evening, Falkland Islands Assembly member Dean Dent told constituents that the UK government is preparing a strong response to the Argentine UNCLOS threat. He said the UK has assembled a team of legal advisers and that four recent cases involving sovereignty taken to UNCLOS were dismissed by the tribunal as sovereignty, not maritime, issues. The UK government is expected to take a firm stance in the coming days. Prime Minister Andy Burnham told parliament on Monday that he had raised the issue and the “clear and declared will of the islanders to remain British” with U.S. President Donald Trump.