New government, same rhetoric over Falklands in Argentina

   Buenos Aires (AFP) --- Argentina's new conservative government affirmed on Sunday that it will continue to press the country's claims to the Falkland Islands, which Britain insists that it owns.

   Britain and Argentina fought a two-month long war over the archipelago in 1982, in which 649 Argentinian servicemen and 255 British were killed.

   Decades after the Falklands War, ownership of the rocky outpost remains at the center of diplomatic tensions between the two nations.

   "Argentina renews its firm commitment to peacefully settling its differences, to international law and multilateralism, the foreign ministry under the country's new president, Mauricio Macri, said in a statement.

   Buenos Aires "invites the United Kingdom to resume as soon as possible negotiations aimed at settling fairly and definitively, the sovereignty dispute over the Falklands (Malvinas as the Argentines call them) islands, South Georgia, South Sandwich islands and surrounding territorial seas," the statement said.

   Argentina maintains that it inherited the remote, windswept Falklands from Spain when it gained independence.

   Britain says it has historically ruled them and that the islanders should have the right to self-determination.