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Argentina criticizes countries condemning Crimea referendum for “double standards"

The president compared the March 16 referendum in Crimea to the situation on the Falkland Islands

Argentinian President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner EPA/MARCELO HERNANDEZ

Argentinian President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner

© EPA/MARCELO HERNANDEZ

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BUENOS AIRES, March 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Argentina’s President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner has criticized all countries condemning Crimea’s referendum for using “double standards”.

The president compared the March 16 referendum in Crimea to the situation on the Falkland Islands.

“If a referendum is held in Crimea, then it is all wrong. But if the same is done by the people of the Falkland Islands, then everything is fine,” Christina Fernandez de Kirchner said after meeting Pope Francis I in the Vatican on Monday.

“This stance stands no criticism,” the Argentina media quoted the president as saying. Kirchner also emphasized that “the world powers had no right to be pretending guarantors of peace.”

The Falkland Islands (the Malvinas) have been a subject of territorial dispute between Argentina and Britain for almost 200 years. In March 2013, a referendum on the archipelago’s status took place on the Falklands. The majority of the population voted for preserving the islands’ status of the overseas territory of the United Kingdom. Argentina, however, refused to recognize the referendum’s results.

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