Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner says Jeremy Corbyn is a great friend of Latin America, supports dialogue over the disputed Falkland Islands
Argentina’s president is celebrating Jeremy Corbyn’s victory to lead Britain’s opposition Labour Party, saying he supports dialogue over the disputed Falkland Islands.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said Saturday that the far-left lawmaker is a great friend of Latin America.
Argentina lost a brief war with Britain over the South Atlantic territory in 1982, but still claims the islands, which it refers to as the Malvinas. Britain says the islands are a self-governing entity under its protection, and islanders cannot be forced to accept Argentine sovereignty.
Kirchner made her comments in a letter published on her official website. It says Corbyn also sides with Argentina in its human rights issues and in its long-standing dispute with US hedge funds that Fernandez calls “vultures.”
Both the Argentine president and the new Labour party leader have fraught relationships with their local Jewish communities. Corbyn’s overtures to radical Islamists and anti-Israel sentiments have caused concern among British Jews. British Jews have also repeatedly expressed alarm over what they say are Corbyn’s dubious ties to Holocaust deniers and pro-Palestinian figures who have espoused anti-Semitic views.
Empathetic to Hamas and Hezbollah, Corbyn, who won the Labour leadership by a landslide Saturday, is also widely regarded as one of the British MPs most hostile to Israel.
Kirchner, who in July made headlines for a series of tweets that were perceived to be anti-Semitic, was also accused by late Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman of covering up Iranian involvement in the deadly 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center. In April, a prosecutor dismissed the allegations, effectively putting an end to the trial and exonerating Kirchner.
Nisman had alleged Iranian officials ordered the bombing via Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. He later concluded that a 2013 deal between Argentina and Iran for the suspects to be investigated by a joint commission was a conspiracy designed to ensure they would never be brought to justice.
In January he filed a report accusing Kirchner, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other figures close to the government of protecting high-ranking Iranian officials, including former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in exchange for oil and trade benefits.
Four days later, on January 18, the prosecutor was found dead in his bathroom with a bullet through the head.
As reported by The Times of Israel