Uruguay
Uruguay Denied a Submarine Cable Link With the Falkland Islands
Yamandú Orsi rejected the existence of a proposal to connect Uruguay with the archipelago by fiber optic cable. He also reaffirmed his country’s historic position on Argentine sovereignty.
The president of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, denied that there is a project or proposal to connect Uruguayan territory with the Falkland Islands by submarine fiber optic cable.
According to reports by Clarín and La Nación, the president said during a press conference at the Expo Rural del Prado in Montevideo that his government had not received any proposal on that possibility. “We never had any proposal, any approach. No consideration was made because there was never anything,” he said.
Orsi also said that a U.S. company is working on a connectivity initiative, but clarified that the project does not include the Falkland Islands. “It is fake news,” he stressed, according to both outlets.
La Nación added that the statements came after images were released of a vessel from a Dutch company in Uruguayan waters. That outlet said that in recent days there had been reports of seabed survey work for a possible submarine telecommunications cable to the islands.
According to La Nación, the company involved confirmed in a statement that it was carrying out studies of the seabed for a submarine cable project, but said those activities were not linked to hydrocarbon exploitation. It also said it does not participate and will not participate in the Sea Lion project or in other oil developments in that area, always according to that newspaper.
At the same time, Orsi reiterated Uruguay’s position on the sovereignty dispute in the South Atlantic. Both Clarín and La Nación reported that the president said that “Uruguay has a fixed position” and that the “Malvinas are Argentine.”
Clarín also reported that in Argentina an official bill entered Congress to sanction oil companies operating in the islands. According to that outlet, the initiative was presented by the national government under the name “National Sovereignty Defense Law” and aims to replace current legislation with a stricter sanctions framework.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with assistance from artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this event.
