Argentina threatens legal action against UK over Falkland Islands oil exploration

Argentina's president has threatened to launch a legal challenge against the British government unless it halts oil exploration work off the coast of the Falkland Islands.

In a social media post, President Javier Milei set a two-week deadline for the Sea Lion oilfield project, a joint venture between Israeli and British companies, to be scrapped.

The companies insist they have valid licences issued by Britain.

The comments heighten tensions between the UK and Argentina over the sovereignty of the archipelago, known in Argentina as Las Malvinas, more than 40 years after a British military task force ejected Argentine forces which had invaded the territory in 1982.

Milei said that if the two-week deadline was not met, he had "instructed the Foreign Ministry and legal teams to initiate international arbitration" against the UK over what he called "the illegal plundering of our resources through the Sea Lion Project".

He continued to warn the UK that if the "illegitimate exploitation" of the region didn't end within two weeks, Argentina would take the matter before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

The International Tribunal is an independent judicial body based in Hamburg which is responsible for the fair application of the United Nations' Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The move comes soon after Milei roundly criticised the UN in his speech at the General Assembly for failing to act over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.

He said the UN had become "a useless organisation" which only serves "arrogant parasites dressed up as well-intentioned bureaucrats".

Since then, the UK Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, said that Argentina "lacks the ability" to take back the Falklands by force.