The Argentine ministers of Defense, Carlos Presti, and Foreign Affairs, Pablo Quirno, have toured in Ushuaia the site where a future Integrated Naval Base is projected to be built, a military initiative paralyzed for decades that President Javier Milei has revived in the context of the renewed tension with the United Kingdom over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.
During their visit, the two ministers held meetings with local authorities, including the governor of Tierra del Fuego, Gustavo Melella, and the lieutenant governor Mónica Urquiza, who "showed all the willingness to help in the project of the Integrated Naval Base," according to Quirno, in statements collected by the newspaper 'La Nación'.
Quirno specified, however, that the provincial institutions "will not add financing or resources for the work," so the initiative will be funded solely with national state funds.
Melella emphasized the "importance" it would have for the region for the base to materialize, recalling that "for forty years there has been talk of the Integrated Naval Base." "We were pushing, even with the previous national government," he stressed, highlighting the "unique strategic geopolitical location" that the province of Tierra del Fuego occupies.
"If one sees how Chile is advancing, how the United Kingdom is advancing, with all due respect, Argentina cannot be left behind," warned the governor, emphasizing that the project is key for "the defense of sovereignty" and putting aside the "political and ideological differences on some issues" that he maintains with Milei's Executive. "In this project, we are totally in agreement and it must be done," he concluded.
The Milei Government has inaugurated a new phase in the dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, an archipelago in the South Atlantic for which both countries faced each other in a ten-week war in 1982, by announcing sanctions against companies and individuals that promote oil activities in the vicinity of the islands without the authorization of Buenos Aires.
At the same time, the president has defined the construction of an "integrated naval base" in Tierra del Fuego and the strengthening of national capabilities in telecommunications as "a priority," emphasizing that these infrastructures will allow Argentina to consolidate itself as a reference logistics hub in the area.