THE PRIME Minister said the future of the Falkland Islands was up to the people who live there, and not Argentina.
David Cameron rebuffed claims by Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner that Britain is a colonial power and that the islands should be handed over.
He told her she should “listen” to the result of a referendum to be held on the islands, and if the people chose to remain British they would have his “100%” backing.
“The future of the Falkland Islands should be determined by the Falkland Islanders themselves, the people who live there,” he said.
“Whenever they have been asked their opinion, they say they want to maintain their current status with the United Kingdom.
Mr Cameron, on a visit to Preston, responded to questions on the islands after the row over their future was reignited by an open letter written by the president of Argentina, calling on him to relinquish British control.
The letter, published as an advert in the Guardian and reported in other newspapers, said Argentina was forcibly stripped of the Malvinas the Argentinian name for the islands in “a blatant exercise of 19th-century colonialism.”
The 59-year-old president, who made several calls for the return of the islands during last year’s 30th anniversary of the Falklands conflict, urged the Prime Minister to abide by United Nations resolutions she says back the Argentinian cause.
Barry Elsby, a member of the islands’ legislative assembly, said: “We are not a colony our relationship with the United Kingdom is by choice.”
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the Falkland Islanders “are British and have chosen to be so.”
“They remain free to choose their own futures, both politically and economically, and have a right to self-determination as enshrined in the UN Charter,” she added.