MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. London’s contradicting approaches to the situation with the Falkland Islands and the Crimean Peninsula fully testifies to the United Kingdom’s double standards, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday.
"The issue of double standards does exist here," Lavrov said, answering a question about the Falkland Islands. He explained that, in regard to those islands, the UK "very strongly" insisted that the people have the right to self-identification.
"By the way, we reminded the British about it, when they got agitated about the Crimean referendum in March 2014. We asked them: do people of the [Falkland Islands], located 10,000 kilometers away from England, have the luxury of self-identification, while the Crimeans, who were a part of our country throughout history, are denied this right? [Their] answer was simple: ‘those are different things’," the top diplomat said, adding that he was “leaving it to the conscience of the English."
Speaking about the situation with the Falkland Islands, the chief diplomat was certain that "this dispute must be solved through dialogue, as mentioned in the UN General Assembly resolution."
He underscored that Russia supports all the General Assembly’s resolutions on those islands." We will continue to vote for the implementation of these resolutions in practice," Lavrov pledged.
The Falkland Islands is an archipelago located in Southwestern Atlantic, comprised of two major islands and over 700 smaller islands and rocks. It was a subject of territorial dispute between Argentina and the UK. The 1982 armed conflict over these territories ended with the defeat of Argentina and restoration of British control over the archipelago.